* 




FREE EELIGION. 

REPORT 

OF ADDRESSES 

AT A 

MEETING HELD II BOSTON, 

MAY 30, 1867, 

TO CONSIDER THE 

CONDITIONS, WANTS, AND PROSPECTS 

OF 

FREE EELIGION IN AMERICA. 

TOGETHER WITH 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION 
THERE ORGANIZED. 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY ADAMS & CO. 

No. 25 BROMFIELD STREET. 

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by Adams & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the 
District Court of Massachusetts. 



1/ 



FREE EELIGION 



E PORT 



OF ADDRESSES 



AT A 



MEETING HELD IN BOSTON, 

MAY 30, 1867, 

TO CONSIDER THE 

CONDITIONS, WANTS, AND PROSPECTS 

OF 

FREE RELIGION IN AMERICA. 

TOGETHER WITH 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION 
THERE ORGANIZED. 



^ 7 VVashini 

* BOSTON j 
PUBLISHED BY ADAMS & CO. 

No, 25 BROMFIELD STREET. 



Printed by 
W. F. Brown & Co., No. 27 Cornhill. 



REPORT. 



A very large assembly gathered in Horticultural Hall, Bos- 
ton, on the 30th of May, 1867, in response to the following note 
of invitation, printed as an advertisement in several of the sec- 
ular and religious newspapers of Boston and New York : 

" A Public Meeting, to consider the conditions, wants and 
prospects of Free Religion in America, will be held on Thursday, 
May 30, at 10 A. M., at Horticultural Hall, Boston. 

" The following persons have been asked to address the meet- 
ing, and addresses may be expected from most of them : R. W. 
Emerson, John Weiss, Robert Dale Owen, Wm. H. Furness, Lu- 
cretia Mott, Henry Blancharcl, T. W. Higginson, D. A. Wasson, 
Isaac M. Wise, Oliver Johnson, F. E. Abbot, and Max Lilien- 
thal. 

(Signed), " 0. B. Frothtngham, ) 

Wm. J. Potter, > Committee." 
Rowland Connor, ) 

The origin of this call is explained in the Address of the 
Chairman of the Meeting. 

The Assembly was called to order at a little past 10 o'clock, 
and organized by the choice of Octavius B. Frothingham as 
Chairman, and Mrs. Caroline M. Severance as Secretary. 

Mr. Frothingham, as Chairman, then made the following re- 
marks in explanation of the objects of the meeting : 

Remarks of the President. 

As Chairman of the Committee by whom this Meeting was called, 
as well as the Chairman of the meeting itself, it is proper that I should 
make two or three remarks, explanatory of the purpose of the meet- 
ing. 



i 



Let me soy in the first place, that this is not strictly the first meet- 
ing of the kind. What is proposed here was not initiated here this 
morning. As long ago as early in February, a private conference "was 
held of some fifty or sixty gentlemen and ladies at the house of a gen- 
tleman in Boston, for the consideration of the general question, how- 
far it might be possible to organize or associate the radical elements in 
religion in the form of a fellowship independent of the regularly organ- 
ized sects in Christendom. That was a private conference, and the ex- 
pression of opinion there was very frank and very sincere. The con- 
ference lasted nearly the whole day. It would not be proper that I, in 
this place, or at this time, should give an account of the proceedings 
of that conference ; but it is proper for me to say that at the conclusion 
of that meeting a committee was appointed, charged with calling a pub- 
lic meeting of a similar character, at such time and place as they might 
see fit to choose. The committee consisted of five members. My own 
name was placed first on the list ; Mr. Charles E. N orton was second ; 
"William J. Potter, of New Bedford, was also nominated, and Miss 
Shannon, of Watertown, and Mr. Rowland Connor, of Boston. Mr. 
Norton resigned, declining to serve on the committee, on account of en- 
gagements ; Miss Shannon shortly left for Europe ; and the business 
devolved on the remaining members of the committee. We therefore, 
not thinking it worth the while or important that we should fill up our 
numbers, have called this meeting. 

Our duty would seem to be discharged by simply providing a hall, 
opening it, and advertising the meeting. But we have felt at liberty, 
friends, to go a little further than this, knowing to what peril promis- 
cuous meetings are exposed, and how soon the hours are wasted away 
in aimless talk by persons who are unprepared to speak. Feeling also 
that, as two of these gentlemen were members of the company who 
signed their names to the call for the first private conference, and as such, 
knew better what the purpose of the meeting would be, than others 
could be expected to know, they have taken upon themselves to arrange 
the meeting. To save time, to economize the moments, to give point and 
purpose and balance and weight to what may be said, they have decided 
to invite speakers to occupy the time this morning. It is expected that 
a more public meeting for more open discussion will be held this af- 
ternoon. 

And I will state here the principles upon which the committee pro- 
ceeded when they planned this meeting, and called it. It has been said 
lately, that the time for a new religious departure had come ; that the 
old parties in Christendom had drawn within their lines ; that the doors 
were open by which people from the outside could come in ; but they 



5 



were not doors by which people from the inside could go out ; and tha 
the time had come, therefore, for a new departure. 

I say a new departure has already taken place. Egypt has by mul- 
titudes been left. A great exodus has long been going on. The vast . 
armies are on the march. Some are just lighting their first camp fires ; 
some are packing up their luggage for the move ; some have just stepped 
into the Red Sea ; others are on the other side. Some are just tasting 
the waters of bitterness, and some have just plucked the herb which 
sweetens the waters. Some are out among the sands, wandering about, 
tired, scattered, groping ; some are at the foot of the mountain, waiting 
to hear the trumpet; some have heard the trumpet, and passed on; 
some have gone beyond the wilderness and touched its utmost verge, 
and, ascending to the high land, are looking down upon the field before 
them ; others again have gone into the field, have found the promised 
land, have brought back a report of the fruits and flowers and the people 
there, have found it a familiar land, the great promised land of the 
Lord, which the Lord originally gave to all his faithful children ; they 
are at home there. These great masses of people, existing as masses, 
are, to a large extent, unconscious themselves of their own intellectual, 
philosophical and spiritual condition. Some, as I have intimated in a 
figure, are organized, more or less. Some are entirely disorganized. 
Some are already beginning to crystallize by the touch of circumstances, 
and fall within their lines. Some, understanding themselves very well, 
and their own position, are utterly at a loss to understand the position 
of their neighbors, or to know how they are related to other classes of 
feelers, thinkers, and believers, who are out cn the same general march. 
Now it is believed that all these persons, however named or declining 
to be named ; however conscious or unconscious of their own position, 
have, nevertheless, started from the same centre ; are heading for the 
same general point ; are moving along in a zigzag course very much 
but still in the same parallel lines, and are related to one another by 
certain affinities of feeling, thought and purpose, which make them one 
in spirit and in faith. 

The committee, proceeding upon this hypothesis, which is justified to 
their own minds if not to vours. have said to themselves, let us give 
voice as far as possible to ail these different masses. We have, there- 
fore, invited no one to speak here this morning who represents any 
organized sect ; no Orthodox man as Orthodox ; no Unitarian as a 
Unitarian ; no Universalist as a Universalist. We have called upon 
the extreme left wing of the Unitarians ; we have called upon the pro- 
gressive movement of the Universalist. We have then addressed our- 
selves to the vast company of Spiritualists, and said, " Send us a man, 



6 



to speak for you." We have turned to the Friends and said, " Send 
us a woman," and they sent us a woman. We have turned to the Pro- 
gressive Friends and said, " Send us a spokesman," and they have sent 
us their spokesman. Then, having satisfied the demands of Christen- 
dom, we have gone outside of Christendom. Religion is not Christian ; 
religion is human. There is first Romanism and then Christianity. 
There is Protestantism, and then Christianity. There is Liberalism, 
and then Christianity. And there is Christianity, and then there is Re- 
ligion. And so we have worded our invitation to free religionists, not 
to free Christians ; and we have gone out of the church, under any de- 
nomination. Out there in Cincinnatti there are societies of modern 
Jews, liberal Jews. We sent off a missive to them, and said, " Come 
and we will give you an opportunity to speak from the inside of your 
own body ; let us know what you think." Then there are " come- 
outers," (as we say), intelligent men ; believing, earnest men ; devoted 
men, consecrated men, who refuse to be called Christians at all ; we said, 
" Let us hear from you." There are men who believe in scientific meth- 
ods ; we have said, " Let us hear from you." There are men who start 
from the spiritual side ; we have said, " Let us hear from you." And then 
there are worthy men who are strictly universal, comprehensive, absolute, 
taking in everything by pure thought, the men of pure intuition ; and 
we said, Give us one of your men to speak for you." And we have 
asked Ralph Waldo Emerson to do that. 

Now I think you will concede that we have been honest and sincere, 
and faithful to our idea. It would be a pleasant thing to have an open 
meeting, if the days contained more than twenty -four hours, and the 
hours more than sixty minutes ; but, unfortunately, in the order of a 
kind Providence, they do not. It would be a pleasant thing to have an 
open meeting and free speech : unable to do that, we say, trust us for 
believing that in inviting these men to speak here this morning, we in- 
vite you all to speak. We believe every earnest phase of thought and 
faith to be found in our community is ably, honestly, and sincerely repre- 
sented in the speakers that we shall bring before you. More than this 
we do not claim. We ask to be heard not as disorganizers, but as or- 
ganizers ; not as men who would destroy, but as men who would fulfil ; 
not as men who would pull down, but as men who would build up ; 
not as men who would scatter to the winds, but as men who would 
gather together out of the far corners of the earth, and from the four 
winds of heaven, those who do sincerely believe, think and feel and 
worship alike. We have faith in this spiritual affinity for drawing 
men and women together — a profound faith in that. 

We have no criticism to make upon the past, none upon the Catholic 



7 

Church, none upon the Protestant Church, in any of its branches, and 
none upon the Liberal Church. We leave them to their limitations ; 
if they are satisfied with them, we are satisfied that they should, be sat- 
isfied with them. We say, let those who are unlimited, those out of 
bonds, come together as a company of brothers and sisters, and take a 
look into the future, and see how far they are travelling along in parallel 
lines towards the great Kingdom which we hope will receive us all at 
last. 

Now I have made an explanation in behalf of the committee : it has 
been much longer than I intended to make, not being one of the advertised 
speakers. Let me say, before I begin to introduce the speakers of the 
morning, that there was originally in contemplation, and is now enter- 
tained, an idea of association or fellowship in whatever loose, natural, 
spontaneous form that can be made. A motion to that effect, and the 
appointing of a committee to draw up some general scheme will be 
in order. That motion, however, is not debatable at this time. The 
proceedings will be debatable at the afternoon meeting, which will be 
expressly devoted to the question of organization. Is anybody prepared 
to make a motion to this effect ? 

Rev. Edward C. Towne, of Medford. said : 

Mr. Chairman, — It was a characteristic of the meeting to which 
allusion has been made, that a large part of the day was spent in 
free conference ; and afterwards the question of organization was taken 
into consideration. And it was voted at the close of our consultation 
in that conference that we should have a similar public meeting. It 
is proposed therefore, this morning, that a committee be appointed to 
report, at the second meeting, this afternoon, a plan of organization, 
and officers to be nominated under that organization. And I beg leave 
therefore, to nominate William J. Potter, Francis E. Abbott, Richard P. 
Hallowell, H. C. Belong, and Hannah E. Stevenson, as a committee to 
report upon permanent organization, and also to nominate officers under 
any plan of organization which they may decide to recommend. 

The^ioniination was ratified on the part of the meeting. 

The President. 
I had arranged a certain logical order in the speeches of this morn- 
ing. Those who first proposed a Conference in Boston in the month of 
Februar}^, were Unitarians, that is, their route was in Unitarianism. I 
intended, therefore, to introduce to you first of all a speaker from the 
extreme left of Unitarianism, the Reverend John Weiss ; but as I do 
not see that he is present this morning, I shall take the liberty of calling 



s 



the next speaker, v/hom I had on the list, — a representative of free Uni- 
versalism ; and I shall introduce as spokesman to you from that body, 
Rev. Henry Blanchard, of Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Remarks of Rev. Henry Blanchard. 
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, — 

More than ten days ago I received a letter, inviting me to speak in 
Boston, at a Radical, meeting, knowing that I am a Radical. I wrote 
back in response, that T should be very glad to do so. I supposed at 
that time, however, that the meeting would be of those who desired 
to be called Christians ; and though I am very happy indeed to join 
those who do not want to call themselves Christians, — because I be- 
lieve that there are noble men and women outside of all Christian 
churches, — yet I was desirous that some one should precede me, who 
should speak for free Unitarian ism, and that I might catch the spirit of 
the meeting from him, so that I might not say anything inappropriate 
to this platform. If I do say anything, therefore, which is inappropriate , 
J trust you will bear with me. 

The letter requested that I should speak of the condition, and wants 
and prospects of Universalism ; and I shall endeavor to do so as well 
as I may. I shall not be able to explain the condition of Universalism, 
unless we go back to the beginning. We are to consider then that the 
movement began in Calvinism. The first step was that the atonement 
of Christ included not a few, but all men ; and first preachers said that 
the foreordmation of God, who had sent Jesus Christ to be an atone- 
ment, was to the effect that all men should be ultimately delivered into 
the glorious liberty of the children of God. Very speedily, however, 
Hosea Ballon started a secondary movement. He was a Unitarian 
Universalist, and . did not place the stress^ upon the atonement that his 
predecessors had, saying that the fatherhood of God included the sal- 
vation of man. But he believed that all men would be immediately 
transported into happiness and holiness. His preaching marked the 
second step of Universalism. The third movement was that inaugura- 
ted by Paul Dean, when he endeavored to form what was then called 
the " restoration party " among Universalists ; and that party, although 
it was then defeated nominally, is now the dominant one among Uni- 
versalists ; for the great body have followed Paul Dean's leadership and 
that of Dr. Sawyer, of New York. The majority of those who call 
themselves Universalists, in the United States to-day, believe that God's 
purpose is to improve mankind, and that bye-and-bye in His own good 
time, this object will be accomplished ; so that at last, no matter how 
long it may be postponed, all men shall be made holy and happy. They 



9 



emphasize their protest against the old-fashioned belief of the Ballou 
Universalist. They believe that there is an ultimate connection be- 
tween this world and the next. They believe that it is not according 
to the providence of God, that man should leap from a state of unholi- 
ness here to a state of holiness in the next world. 

Hosea Ballou, 2d, late President of Tufts College, was, and Dr. Saw- 
yer is, just as earnest on this point as any Unitarian would wish them to 
be. There has been another movement, viz., one against the textual 
interpretation of the Bible. The follower of this movement said, " I am 
a Universalist, but I do not accept the old interpretation of the text ; 
it is sufficient that I believe that God is my father, and, because he is, 
I believe that all men will be saved, and I do not care whether the 
interpretation of this text has been right or wrong." This was the first 
liberal movement of the Universalist denomination. 

The followers of this say further, that, whether the Bible teaches that all 
men are to be saved or not ; because an Infinite Providence is an Infinite 
Father, therefore, all men will be saved. And here is an important distinc- 
tion, because the first conclusion was based on the statement of the Bible, 
and the other was based on man's consciousness of Deity himself. These 
men believe that the power that made this earth, has made it for good ; 
and they believe the Bible because, accepting science as highest authority, 
they do not find the Bible, fairly interpreted, clashing with this, and so 
accept final universal salvation as a doctrine based on the dicta of 
science to-day. You will understand, therefore, that the great body of 
Universalists are wedded to the old belief, which has been the result of 
the Calvinistic beginning ; that the Bible is that authority to which 
they are to go, and that they must bow down their reason to this, and 
that whatsoever the Bible teaches that they must accept. As a man 
said to me once, " If it can be shown by the Bible, that the doctrine of 
everlasting punishment is true, I shall be obliged to teach that." Such, 
men belong outside of the old Church which planted itself on the Bible 
as its chief corner stone. Now we have another movement. Perhaps 
it will be thought by some that it has not sufficient power to be called 
a movement. 

The followers of this believe men are wiser to-day than they were in 
the past. They say that men ought to do away with those old super- 
stitious ideas of believing in absolute subjection to Jesus Christ, great as 
he is, in order that they may bow down to the Infinite Spirit. They 
should be classed with the Quakers, because they lay emphasis upon 
the spirit of God ; not chiefly Jesus, though they honor him, and not 
merely on the Bible, though they reverence that with all their hearts. 
In the next place, there is a strong anti-congregational feeling, resul ting 



10 



frcrn the lack of culture. Not understanding bow men can believe in 
the Bible, or in Jesus at all. unless these are accepted in a certain way, 
the majority of the Universalist clergy do not like the liberty of Con- 
gregationalism. They use the arguments that are so sound in behalf of 
organizations to establish academies and colleges, so as to make these 
apply in favor of a machinery to crush it. 

I believe this anti- congregational spirit is an evil. Churches should 
be independent, having their own creeds, if any. and choosing their own 
minister, who shall be free to speak his best thought. I left the de- 
nomination because I was not willing to owe allegiance to denomina- 
tional authority. I told certain honored leaders my view on certain 
questions, and asked them if they desired me to go out of the denomina- 
tion. They replied. " If you do not change your views we think you 
ought to go." And I did go. and I hope that others will go outside 
also. I see. too. that the warmest men are the ones most interested in 
ecclesiastical machinery, and most apt to get into the engineer's seat. 
They will use their power to silence all dissent. Because of this result, 
therefore. I deplore the lack of culture. Let me say a few words with 
regard to what is being done for the cause of learning. The lack of 
culture which I have been dwelling upon, has been felt by many noble, 
earnest men. and to-day. therefore, many are giving money and time 
for the erection of academies and colleges. There is no denomination 
in the United States that desires more earnestly than the Universalist 
does, to have its ministers and laymen receive the culture which its 
leaders lacked. All honor, therefore, to the men and women engaged 
in this great cause. I see, also, a growing liberality on the part of the 
laymen. I am somewhat at a loss, therefore, to prophecy concerning the 
prospects of the denomination. I think I see two tendencies ; the first 
is towards the establishment of what -might be called Episcopalianism. 
There is a desire to have ritualistic services and a ministry quite dis- 
tinctly separated from the people ; and something of a desire to have a 
church government, like the Episcopalians. The tendency, therefore, is 
to become a thoroughly organized body, modified somewhat by a tendency 
to become liberalized by degrees ; because the spirit of the times must 
reach this, and because the schools and colleges will help towards liber- 
ality, and so at last, as the Episcopal and Methodist bodies are becoming 
liberal Christians, the Universalist denomination must move on to the 
same result. This thorough organization prevents a union with the Uni- 
tarians. It prevents the body from co-working with other liberal bodies 
at present. 2so one, desirous of securing a free religious association, can 
hope for any assistance from an organization so compact, sectarian, intol- 
erant as this. Indeed, friends, I do not see, myself, how it is possible to 



11 



have an association so broad as to include all religious men ; and I wish 
the question to be considered whether it is practicable to have any other 
union, than one which may be called a liberal Christian one. God knows, 
it thrills me to see on this platform to-day. and in this house, the represen- 
tatives of so many different opinions. God knows I am thrilled by the 
hope of union of all devout men. I see the need of some organization, 
outside of all Christian churches, but I do not see that it is possible to 
draw the Christian into this. 

I want to see all Liberal Christians in one body. As one of these, I 
will work with any broader organization, — and I doubt not that there 
are many good, true, earnest, devoted men and women who will be glad 
to work with any free, religious organization, which may result from this 
meeting to-day. 

The President then introduced Lucretia Mott, of Phila- 
delphia. 

Eeiiaeks of Mrs. Lucretia Mott. 

Our President announced me as a representative of the Quaker Sect, 
or the Society of Friends. I must do cur friends at home the justice 
to say that I am not here as a representative of any sect. I am not 
delegated by any portion, or by any conference or consultation of Friends 
in any way. I am here, as some say, " on my own hook.'*' And if I can 
be heard, in my feebleness, it will not be to present to your view, as our 
first speaker has done for Universalism. the various phases of the society 
of Friends. — the Orthodox portion, the Hicksite portion, the Progressive 
Friends, or any of these, — because I think people generally are more in- 
terested in these divisions of then' own denominations than outsiders, or 
than the other sects are. And I do not know whether it is so profitable 
a use of the time to enter into the little differences which have caused 
divisions among religious denominations, as to take a more general view 
of the advantages and disadvantages of religious organizations. 

I had not understood, in coming here, the precise nature of the meet- 
ing ; I did not know how Radical the Convention was expected to be. 
One speaker, who has just sat down, has deprecated the idea of dissent 
from all congregational association ; but it seems to me that, a conven- 
tion on so broad a basis as I had understood this to be, should learn 
better than to deprecate any religious dissent or come-outer-ism " from 
organization, and that there should be understood among us the charity, 
the toleration (if I may use that " proud, self-sufficient word," as some 
one has called it), to bear all things, and to recognize the march of the 
religious sentiment in all ages. And I have regretted, since I sat here, 
that our friend, known to so many, and probably to all of you here, 



12 



— William Lloyd Garrison, — who is not in the country, is not able to 
be here. He is the representative of no religious (as such) or sectarian 
organization, although the Anti-Slavery Society, by its advancement of 
right and justice, has found itself eminently a religious ' organization, I 
think. 

The movements of the present age are striking and deeply interest- 
ing. The fact of a Jew being called to a Unitarian pulpit in Cincin- 
natti recently, and tl e fact of a Jewish sermon being published in one 
of the papers in Philadelphia, and being commented upon with favor 
since that time, — these facts, as well as other evidences, go to show the 
enlarged ideas and enlarged spirit of the religious world, — or at least 
of Christendom. — in this country, and in England. Look at the di- 
visions and subdivisions, and the free inquiries now in the Church of 
England. First a few individuals here and there came out, and then 
there came others, and great scholars among them. And this was also 
noticeable among the Unitarians ; and these were so liberal that for 
years, I believe, no Unitarian association in this country has ventured 
to reprint their Radical works. Following these, there were the seven 
essays, with their products startling the church, and an examination 
was made on a charge of excommunication. Following these, was 
Bishop Colenso, going still further, and making the others almost ad- 
mitted to be Orthodox, since he went so much farther than they. 
Thus I see in the English church great confusion, from the dissenting 
spirit. The various dissenting churches in England and in this country 
(I will not take the time to enumerate them), have been coming for- 
ward in recognition of the religious ideas that are implanted in all human 
hearts, the universal religious elements of our constitution. As culture, 
and education, and civilization advance, these associations are gradually 
coming out of the old superstitious, traditional ideas in which they have 
been educated ; and although the articles of faith remain the same ; 
although the articles of the church, or the various creeds, in their verbal 
standing, may remain untouched, and it would appear that they were in- 
deed the same ; some of them Orthodox, as they are termed (we all 
claim to be Orthodox, I suppose), and some of them old and very strange 
notions, yet if you hear them explained now, — though people admit 
that they believe what the creed really says, — they put very different 
interpretations upon it. Still although these persons do shorten the 
creeds every time, each still remains Orthodox just as much after the 
shortening as before. And we have now had movements through the 
Unitarians and Universalists, and, more especially perhaps, through the 
Spiritualists ; for although I have never attended their meetings, and 
know but little of them, except what other persons have told, yet I 



1 o 

lo 

understand that they have effected more against the dogmas of the 
time, than other congregational organizations have as yet done. I 
know our Friends are very jealous of any association with Unita- 
rians or Universalists, or tvan with the Progressive Friends. And 
therefore I say that I am here representing myself, and not the 
Friends, although I am much attached to the organizations to which I 
belong. And I shall hope that in the discussion which may follow, 
there may be the broadest recognition of existing sects and denomina- 
tions ; that there shall not be a con-sociation and continuance with 
existing denominations ; but on the other hand that there shall be such 
a recognition of the come-outer element, if I may so call it (I do not 
know what to call it), — a dissent from organization. 

I believe, as fully as that the command was given to Abraham, that 
the command is now to many, " Leave now the kindred of thy father's 
house, and go into the land that I shall show thee." As George Fox 
was drawn away from all organizations of his time, and had to re- 
tire alone, and there be instructed from a higher power than himself, 
from the divine word ; and claim that as the highest authority for ac- 
tion ; no Bibles, no human authorities, no ministers, no pulpits, no 
anything that should take the place of this divine, inward, everyday 
teacher, so simple in its instruction, — as he, I say, was thus called out 
from all his kindred, and from his father's house, and brought unto the 
land that was thereafter shown unto him ; so I say there is an increased 
number now of this description. I remember especially one whose 
book I have read with very great interest, who even from Spain, came 
out in advance of the friends of progress and of the most liberal Unita- 
rians in England and in this country, — Blanco White. I regret that 
those who were called to the reformation in the land were not satis- 
fied with being destructives. Immediately they went to again con- 
structing. Our friend, I think, before me, deprecated the idea of the 
destruction of religious organization. I do not know that it is to be 
deprecated. I know that there can not be any movement, any fellow- 
ship of anybody together without some form or some rules of govern- 
ment. But in a republic like this, if I understand self-government 
aright (I wish there was some better nomenclature ; we have the term 
self-government, and we have the same term to represent self-govern- 
ment in a republic), we have yet to learn something that shall recognize 
independence of the mind, and the truth that maketh free, and that hy 
which if we are made free we are free indeed. I have as full faith in 
the religious experience and devotion of those who have withdrawn 
from all religious association, going occasionally to hear the liberal 
preaching around them. Now I cannot say that these are not just as 



14 



religious in their devotion as the most sectarian observer of forms. 
Many of these believe it to be better to come out more openly in the 
matter of prayer. They believe it a very wise recommendation of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, that divine Son of God, " When thou prayest, enter 
into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door, there pray in secret, 
and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." 

I say 1 represent myself. I am a kind of outlaw in my own society. 
It is a universal custom for us to rise in time of prayer. It is considered 
out of order for any to keep their seats. I have not felt free to do this 
for many years, and have been subjected to reproach and contumely by 
those with whom I have been associated. It is very difficult for us to 
be non-conformists with those with whom we associate. It seems to me 
that we show this infidelity (if I may so speak), this denial, in our indis- 
position to follow in some of the acts of conformity more than in any 
other way. It is of little matter to me what the creed shall be as 
regards trinity and unity, as regards what has been explained here as 
Universalism, or in a more limited way. We know so very little of the 
after life, that I am glad that the intelligence of the age is leading us to 
apply our religion more to this life, and to every-day practice and every- 
day necessity, and uprightness and goodness, and to enter into our 
heaven here. 

I was interested a few weeks ago, at the opening of a new Unitarian 
house of worship in Germantown. One of the speakers said that they 
had got a " regular built church." It had a font, and table, and pulpit, 
&c, and he did not like the idea that churches should be converted into 
lecture rooms. Now it seems to me that it is a great progress, that a 
church may be used sometimes for lectures. I want our friends to be 
liberal enough ; and I should be glad to see a more general disposi- 
tion to have a church or place of worship a freer place of gathering. 
And when our friend was speaking in Germantown, a large portion of 
the people present were Friends, and large numbers that had been 
admitted into that society were unaccustomed to the baptismal font; 
and it seemed to me that he was behind the age in speaking in the 
way he did. But I notice that the father of the young Mr. Neal who 
was to be ordained, in turning over the pages of his Bible, chanced to 
open to the passage in the last of John the divine, that had always been 
rather a favorite one, where it speaks of the new Jerusalem that cometh 
down from God out of heaven, and he read that in that new Jerusalem 
there was no temple found. Now if that be the case, why may we not 
suppose that some of these regular radical supporters have entered this 
new Jerusalem. But how are we to judge of them, and how are we to 
judge whether these persons who love their baptismal font and com- 



15 



niunion table, love the Lord Jesus Christ ? How are we to judge 
whether they do or do not, except by their every day practice and good 
works. We must hold these up, and with this view. 

I do not wish, as a single individual, to commit the society to 
which I belong, in any wise. But I would desire that the convention 
t may result in so enlarged a charity and so enlarged an idea of religion, 
and of the proper cultivation of the religious nature and element in man, 
as to be able to bear all things, and to be able to have that extended 
charity that is not offended, and does not deprecate going on before, and 
to have charity for those who are behind, and also for those who go on 
before. 

May we then in thus coming together learn charity ; and if we want 
an organization, let us not suppose that it must necessarily be an organ- 
ization similar to any in existance, that are recognized as churches. I 
do not mean the Quakers ; but we can have an organization, and have 
it understood that there shall not be a regular minister who shall be 
obliged every appointed day to have a sermon prepared, and a prayer, 
perhaps, whether in the spirit or not. I often pity your ministers who 
have to come forth with their prepared sermons every Sunday. Why 
not carry out the precept that when anything shall be revealed to him 
that standeth by, let the first hold his peace. 

I remember some thirty years ago, that on being introduced to Dr. 
Burleigh (we do not like to say " Reverend " among the Quakers), by 
Dr. Channing, I asked him why there should be a monopoly in exclu- 
ding woman from the pulpit. He said, " It is something that never 
entered my mind." I believe a large portion of the people never 
thought of the thing. But believe me, my friends, when I tell you that 
this monopoly will have to be broken up, and that there will be a 
ministry among us of a freer character than that which has been known 
heretofore. 

Now, I do not know how far I have presented what was required by 
the platform this morning, but these are the thoughts which were in my 
mind, and which I have attempted to give forth, without any prepara- 
tion. 

The President. 
One word in regard to the matter of representation here. The 
word has been used several times ; I think it was used by myself. 
Let me say, however, that there is, strictly speaking, no representative 
here this morning. No body is represented here. The liberal Unita- 
rians have appointed no representative, nor the Universalists, nor 
the Friends, nor the Spiritualists. The committee, wishing that the 
public should be addressed on certain lines of thought, and on certain 



16 



subjects, looked over the whole ground and selected a man, who from 
his position and well-known reputation, his ability, h's cast of mind, and 
his general practice was supposed by them to be the acceptable person 
to speak on the subjects presented. I must mention this, because I have 
had just put in my hands a note of the vote of the Society of Spiritual- 
ists passing resolutions in view of this very meeting, and expressing a 
desire to be represented at it, and nominating a gentleman to represent 
them. The committee, on looking over the whole field, wishing that 
Spiritualism should be spoken of, hit, in their own minds, upon a man 
who they thought would speak of it most soundly, and explain its gen- 
eral principles. And therefore they asked the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, 
whom I have now the pleasure to introduce to you. 

Remarks of Mr. Owen. 

Spiritualism as a Phase of the Religious Sextimext 
of the Day. 

Hoxored with a request to address you here to-day on Spiritualism, 
as a Phase of the Religious Sentiment of the Day, I comply, hoping to 
say a few useiul words on a subject much obscured by misconceptions. 

The term — losing, in a measure, its broad, proper, original sense — the 
term Spiritualism, in modern days, has come to be taken in a partial, 
contracted sense. In the minds of many it has been restricted to a class 
of phenomena, very curious, very interesting to the student of psychology, 
startling to him who has not traced their antecedents scattered through- 
out history, but yet to be regarded as one branch only of a subject vast 
as human wit can fathom, old as the oldest records of human history in 
the universe, profound and important beyond any that can engage the 
attention of men. 

Man cannot live by bread alone. By nourishing and cherishing the 
body he may, indeed, maintain animal life. But such life, when there is 
nothing higher, is not worth acceptance by a being with an immortal 
soul. The spiritual element is as necessary as the physical to worthy 
and happy human existence. 

Yet, even among the cultivated and the intelligent in this world, there 
are two classes. To one of these the spiritual consciousness lies dor- 
mant. They are not usually scoffers. If allusion be made to another 
phase of existence, they do not deride or deny ; they but allege that, in 
their judgment, others have no sufficient grounds for affirming. Some 
of them desire to believe, and sigh because they cannot. Others assert 
their belief, especially on the first day of the week : yet the spirit within 
them is dead ; it is not a living, moving element, coloring daily thoughts, 
influencing daily actions, brightening daily existence. At best it is but 
as the wavering faith of that father, moved by anguish for the fate of his 



17 



dumb child, when he cried out, with tears : " Lord, I believe, help then 
mine unbelief." 

Like these doubters and half believers, I seek the positive and hold to 
the practical ; the fault I find with their philosophy is that it construes 
the terms in a sense falsely restrictive. They cling to human reason ; and 
therein they are right ; but they narrow down, to petty proportions, the 
expanse of field throughout which reason can make discoveries ; assum- 
ing, it would seem, in advance, that realities are to be found only in this 
material phase of existence, and that man's observations are untrustwor- 
thy when, in search of evidence, they are extended beyond it. These 
men speak of reason as a certain German Cavalier, unworthy pupil of 
Kepler, spoke of Galileo's telescope when it first brought to human eye 
the Satellites of Jupiter. " It does wonders on the earth," he said, " but 
falsely represents celestial objects." 

Enlightened Spiritualists, if I may assume to speak for them, neither 
deny nor disparage the proofs touching a future life which are derived 
from analogy, nor many of those which come to us from self-styled 
orthodox sources. But they allege, that, by pursuing the inductive 
method, important additional evidence is to be had, and that it is our duty 
carefully to examine it. 

Even antecedent to such examination they submit whether, if this 
earthly scene be the first phase of human existence, to be followed as soon 
as the death-change occurs by another, it be not a reasonable conclusion, 
arguing a priori, that there should be interventions between these two 
places of being ; occasional intimations from that world towards which 
we are all fast hastening, intended to cheer the pilgrims on the road 
thither ; earnests of a better land in the future, appearing now and then 
to sustain, in season of doubt or despondency, the feeble and the faint 
hearted. They think it rational to believe that, under the economy of a 
wise and benevolent God, all this may happen. 

I met, last summer, at a watering place, one of the dignitaries of a 
sect considered much more orthodox than the Unitarian. He introduced 
the subject of Spiritualism, and we dropped into a long, quiet conversa- 
tion. At the outset I begged him, if he felt free to do so, to tell me 
in what light he had been led to regard Spiritualism and spiritual phe- 
nomena. 

" I will answer frankly," he said. " I see around me evidences of 
infidelity, widely spread and steadily increasing. As an illustration," he 
added, " in a recent conversation with a Professor from Harvard, that 
gentleman expressed the opinion that, of the principal scientific men in 
our country, three-fourths or more are unbelievers ; not outspoken infi- 
dels, but men who, if pressed home for an opinion, confess that they see 

2 



18 



no sufficient evidence for any existence beyond the present. Even in 
our own profession," proceeded my clerical friend, u scepticism, in some 
of its forms, intrudes. A few weeks since, I was called to the death-bed 
of an aged brother in the ministry, a man who had devoted a long life, 
with rare faithfulness, to the duties of his profession ; an exemplar in 
faith and in conduct. As we spoke of the evidences of Christianity, I 
noted a shade of sadness on the dying man's face. " Ah, Bishop," he 
said, " the proof, the proof! If we only had it ! " 

" The spread of Materialism," I remarked, " is even more evident in 
Europe than among us." 

" It prevails," rejoined my reverend friend, " over the civilized world. 
The evidences of a life to come which sufficed to satisfy our ancestors 
are deemed insufficient to-day, by many of the most honest and able of 
their descendants. Saddened by such a conviction, I have been looking 
around for the remedy. I had often observed that God in his providence, 
appeared to grant the means of satisfying human needs, in proportion as 
these arose. I saw that the spirit of the age needed stricter proofs to 
sustain the great truths of our religion. Would not these, in His own 
good time, be vouchsafed ? I look anxiously to Spiritualism and its 
phenomena for the answer." 

As I listened to this common sense view of the case, I regretted that 
some of those who are in the habit of asking : " What possible good 
can Spiritualism do?" were not there to hear our conversation. 

It has been a popular objection to these phenomena, referred to by my 
friend, which have usually been called physical manifestations, that they 
are simple to baldness, lacking imposing air and devoid of dignity. But 
we do well to bear in mind that the noblest superstructures ever erected 
by Science have been based on the rudest facts, on the simplest observa- 
tions ; so rude and simple that, for ages, the world had passed them by, 
not noting their importance. God's ways are not as our ways. He 
does not sound a trumpet before his doings. For the greatest work he 
sometimes selects the humblest instrument. Unlettered fishermen first 
spread the great truths of Christianity. 

The value of these phenomena, if they be genuine, consists in this, 
that they furnish an absolute solution of the Great Problem ; affording, 
in regard to the reality of another world, proof stronger than any which 
historical evidence can supply ; — stronger, to use Tennyson's words, 
"Because things seen are greater than things heard." 

No conviction derived from the testimony of others can match that 
which results from such an appeal. Archbishop Tillotson, in an argu- 
ment against the real presence, says : " Infidelity were hardly possible 
to men, if all men had the same evidence for the Christian religion which 



19 



they have against transubstantiation ; that is, the clear and irresistible 
evidence of sense." 

Spiritualists do not allege, or believe, that any of the phenomena in 
which they find proofs of immortality are miraculous. They believe in 
the universality of Law. They do not regard the signs and wonders that 
came to light in Jesus' day, as exceptions to natural law, but as phe- 
nomena which occurred under laws, ever in force, but with which we are 
imperfectly acquainted. They see reproduced, under their eyes, modern 
types of most of these signs and wonders, and they find, in such repro- 
duction, one of the strongest arguments to sustain the general truth of 
the New Testament narrative. If it can be shown that the various spir- 
itual gifts declared to have been manifested eighteen hundred years ago 
— the discerning of spirits, the power of prophecy, the gift of healing, 
the Pentecostal diversity of tongues, something analogous to what has 
been called the exorcising of evil spirits, even that marvellous faculty to 
lead the hidden host which called forth from the woman of Samaria, the 
invitation to her neighbors, " Come, see a man who told me all things 
that ever I did " — if these various incidents recorded in scriptural nar- 
rative are matched, though it be in humble phase, bv what prove to be 
realities of the present time, can stronger argument be found in reply to 
Strauss and other sceptics when they remind us that what we reject as 
incredible, if alleged to have happened to-day, does not become credible 
by being moved back two thousand years into the past. Thus we allege 
that the phenomena of Spiritualism sustain the general truth of the gospel 
narratives. 

The general truth which is, after all, the essential ; not each separate 
detail. Intelligent Spiritualists reject the doctrine of infallibility. They 
have no belief in /plenary inspiration. They accept the advice of one 
of the Oxford Essayists, Dr. Temple, Chaplain in ordinary to the Queen 
of Great Britain, when, speaking of two great volumes which he ascribed 
to the same author — the book of Nature and the book of Revelation — he 
said, that if discrepancy appear between them it behooved us to consider, 
in the first place, whether we had not incorrectly interpreted the phe- 
nomena, and, in the second, whether the message might not have come 
to us perverted through the messenger. This is what orthodoxy must 
come to, if she would save the essentials of her creed. 

But Spiritualists go a step further. They hold that a spiritual message 
itself may be an error, and that of this we must judge, reverently yet 
freely, as by our reason we test any earthly allegation, let it come from 
a source however accredited. This conviction is derived from another 
item in the Spiritual creed. 

We believe that there are the same varieties of character in the next 



20 



world as in this. We believe that when we cast off the natural body, 
there is, indeed, a potent change from the lower to the higher, yet no 
instantaneous transformation of the soul ; no apotheosis of some, and 
degradation to demon-life of others. When Death calls, he neither de- 
prives us of the virtues, nor suddenly relieves us of the vices, of which 
he finds us possessed. Both go with us. The moral, social and intel- 
lectual qualities which may have distinguished us in this world, will be 
ours in another, there constituting our identity and deciding our position. 
So also of the evil. That dark vestment of sin with which, in a man's 
journey through life, he may have become endued, clings to him through 
the death change close as the tunic of Nesus. He too retains his iden- 
tity ; his earthly short-comings determine his spiritual state. 

We believe, then, that the spirit of man passes the ordeal without other 
metamorphosis than that which its release from the fleshy envelope and 
its acquisition of clearer perceptions effect : undimmed now, unobscured 
by the heavy veil of the material, gradually relieved from the weight of 
bodily grossness and physical infirmity ; a great gainer, too, by this, that, 
through the agency of the spiritual senses, there is opened up a wider 
and more luminous horoscope ; and thus drawn closer to the great Source 
of Wisdom ; yet essentially the same spirit still. It changes there, 
indeed, but not by miracle. It changes, even as now it does, by the 
intervention of motive presented, by the agency of will, by the influence 
of surroundings ; but of surroundings better and nobler than those of 
earth. It changes, as it changed here, by its own aspirations. It inhab- 
its a world of progress still ; a world of active effort, not of passive beati- 
tudes, nor yet of irrevocable doom. While there is life there is hope, 
and there is life beyond the veil. 

We believe that the Christian world has been, and still is, blighted 
with false conceptions of Death. Death is not, as Plato taught, the 
opposite of life. He is life's best friend ; a friend through whose agency 
life is embellished, ennobled, perpetuated. To Death, at the close of a 
life well spent, man owes Paradise. Yet orthodoxy has taught us to 
think of this greatest of benefactors and reformers as the requiter of sin, 
the Avenging Angel, the fell destroyer. Men robe themselves in black 
when he appears ; mourners go about the streets. The great punishment, 
the evil of evils, the primeval curse, declared to have been entailed on 
man by Adam's fall, is held to be that summons which calls him hence. 
Yet, under Omniscient Goodness, nothing so universal, so inevitable as 
death, ever was, or ever can be, essentially evil. Is it a better land to 
which we go ? Then, when the time comes, should we not rejoice in our 
going ? Spiritualists find, in communications purporting to come from 
the other world, unless it be from some spirits of inferior stamp, almost 



21 



entire unanimity in this, that the enfranchised spirit rejoices in the change, 
and would not, if it could, on any condition whatever, return to its earthly 
bondage. 

Under any theory of death there must, indeed, when the summons 
comes, be natural grief to those who remain ; such grief as a mother 
feels when she parts with a beloved daughter, perhaps about to reside in 
a foreign land, though it be in opulence and with the husband of her 
choice. But grief from such a cause is not bitter nor despairing. It 
does not drape itself in mourning. It is softened in many ways. There 
is the knowledge of her child's happiness ; there are frequent letters, 
messages, proofs of love ; there is the hope of return. But when the de- 
parture is by death, does a tutored faith, based on the ordinary promises 
of religion, suffice to replace these visible signs ? Does the mourner need 
nothing else ? 

There are some truths the evidence of which no argument can 
strengthen, because they appeal directly to our consciousness, and are 
adopted unchallenged and at once. A pious mother loses her child — 
though the very phrase is a falsity ; she but parts with him for a season — 
but in the world's language and in her heart's language, she loses her 
only child by death. If, just when her bereavement is felt the most 
despairingly — in the bitter moment perhaps (the winter storm raging 
without,) when the thought flashes across her that the cold sleet is beat- 
ing on her deserted darling's grave ; — if, in that terrible moment, there 
should reach her suddenly, unexpectedly, a token visible to the senses, 
an appearance in bodily form, or an actual message perhaps, which she 
knew came that instant directly from her child ; that appearance or that 
message testifying that he whom she had just been thinking of as lying, 
wrested from her loving care, under the storm-beaten turf, was not there, 
was happier than even she had ever made him, was far better cared for 
than even in her arms ; in such a moment as that, how poor are all the 
arts of logic to prove that the sunshine of such unlooked-for assurance, 
breaking through the gloomy tempest of the mother's grief, and lighting 
up her shrouded hopes, has added nothing to the measure of her belief in 
immortality, has increased not the force of her convictions touching the 
Great Future, has raised not from faith to knowledge the degree of cre- 
dence with which she can repeat to her soul the inspiring words, that, 
though the dust has returned to the earth as it was, the spirit is in the 
hands of God who gave it ! 

How many desolate friends and lovers, how many bereaved parents, 
has Spiritualism, with its living evidences, thus redeemed from the depths 
of hopeless despair ! 

The true spirit in which to interpret the great Change is embodied in 



22 



the touching words of a mother who stood beside the death-bed of a be- 
loved daughter. A few moments only before the spirit was released, she 
bent over the dying girl, kissed her pale, lips, and said, " I wish you joy, 
my darling ! " and so, undismayed, saw her depart. 

Spiritualism embodies other influence not less munificent. It opens 
up to us a Heaven such as the best and wisest may eagerly desire, and 
with the pursuits of which the most active and energetic may ardently 
sympathize. This is needed. To human beings, as they are upon earth, 
the everlasting life of the " rapt seraph that adores and burns " has no 
living charm. Men sometimes reason themselves into an artificial fervor 
of enthusiasm, pending which they experience a certain longing to join 
the angelic hosts and share their changeless avocation. Yet, for the 
most part, it is the reason that frigidly argues, not the genial impulse of 
the feelings that adopts and gladly assents. In Protestant Christendom 
the heart of the millions is not reached by the prospect of eternal life 
commonly presented to them. 

Spiritualists believe, that, when we pass into the next world, we shall 
not be restricted to one occupation, nor inspired exclusively with one sen- 
timent. They believe that our duties will be as manifold and our enjoy- 
ments as various, as here upon earth. How numerous and distinct are 
the virtuous emotions that now move the heart of man ! The promptings 
to acts of benevolence and deeds of good-will, the stirrings of magnanim- 
ity, the efforts of self-denial, fortitude, courage, energy, perseverance, 
resignation, the devotion of love and the yearnings of compassion — what 
a varied list is here ! Are these to perish with the body, or, at best, to 
slumber throughout eternity, inactive or unemployed? Spiritualists be- 
lieve that the life which now is, will have a sequel and a complement in 
that which is to come. Spiritualists believe that he who has labored long 
and patiently to control and discipline a wayward nature — who has 
striven in this world, with earnest and patient effort, after self-culture, 
moral and intellectual — will be allowed to prosecute the task, here so im- 
perfectly performed, there, where there is no flesh to be weak if the spirit 
be willing. They believe that the philanthropist, whose life has been one 
long series of benefactions to his race, will not be called upon to surren- 
der, at death, the exercise of the godlike impulse which bids him succor 
the afflicted and heal the broken heart. They believe that even he 
whose days have been spent in exploring the secrets of nature will not be 
compelled to relinquish, with his earthly body, the pursuit of that science 
to which his heart was wedded. They look forward to a better world, 
but to a world still — the abode of emancipated spirits, but of human 
spirits — a world where there is work to do, a race to run, a goal to reach 
— a world where we shall find, transplanted from earth to a more genial 



23 



soil, high resolves, noble aspirations, stainless actions, Hope to encourage, 
Mercy to plead, and Love — the earth-clod shaken off that dimned her 
purity — still selecting her chosen ones, but to be separated from them 
henceforth no more. 

Spiritualists believe, it would not be correct to say, in Swedenborg's 
Science of Correspondences, a doctrine which, as applied by that philoso- 
pher, I confess that I do not understand, and see no good reason for en- 
tertaining, but in that which might properly enough be so called ; not that 
we shall find, in the next phase of existence, though even this is alleged 
by some, dwellings, and gardens and natural landscape, such as exist on 
earth ; but something corresponding to these ; fair homes and beautiful 
surroundings, grateful to spirits, suited to spirit life ; of a reality beyond 
earthly realities, but in what form, under what precise phase, it may 
never be given us here to know : our mortal state — our earthly lan- 
guage even — being inadequate. 

In like manner they believe that Death will disclose to us, in our new 
abode, the counterparts of laboratories of science, studios of artists, halls of 
instruction, temples of worship. They believe with Paul, that there is 
a spiritual as well as a natural body, and that it is clothed, though not 
with the tissues of earth. They believe that friends recognize each other 
as they arrive ; and that the day of death, with its sad partings on this 
side, is a day of happy re-unions on the other. 

There is another article of belief, universally accepted in the spiritual 
creed ; we believe that human affections and sympathies, stronger than 
death, sometimes attract back to earth the disembodied spirit ; the mother 
yearning after her helpless children ; the lover separated from his be- 
trothed ; the husband still longing to cherish and protect his widowed 
partner. We believe that, under certain conditions, spiritual guardian- 
ship can be exerted, and that it is often exercised, sometimes by loving 
relatives or intimates, sometimes by spirits, a part of whose mission it 
seems to be, like that of the diamon of Socrates, visiting this world, to 
warn and to protect those to whom in the earth-life, they had been 
unattached and unknown. 

But as we find in our present phase of being, both good and evil 
motive ; as men are moved, sometimes by the promptings of affection, 
looking with eye single to others' good, and sometimes by desires that 
are of the earth, earthly ; so it would seem, is it also in the next world. 
Spiritualists believe they have evidence that a frame of mind of exclu- 
sively wordly cast, a character that never bestowed a thought upon any- 
thing beyond the earth, and was troubled only by the cares of possession 
and the pursuit of gain, — may for a time, draw down the spirit, earth- 
bound, though freed from the body, to gather cumber and sorrow amid 



24 



the scenes of its former care. If so, how strong the motive not to suffer 
the present and the temporal, necessary and proper in their places, so to 
engross as to usurp the place and exclude the thoughts, of the future and 
the spiritual ! 

Necessary and proper in their place ; let us bear that in mind. The 
present is an appropriate and essential stage of human progress. Its 
labors must not be set aside that we may idly luxuriate in rapt contem- 
plations of the future. There is a beautiful monkish legend which, in 
this connection, suggests a wholsome lesson. To a certain friar, after 
many beseeching prayers, came, one evening, the appearance of the 
Saviour of the world, filling his lonely cell with dazzling splendor. As 
he gazed, entranced, on the celestial vision, the bell sounded the hour 
at which it was his office to distribute to the poor of the convent their 
accustomed dole. With a sigh, his thoughts reverted to earth ; but he 
resolutely departed on his labor of love. That ended, he repaired to his 
cell. Beyond hope the heavenly visitant still blessed his sight. " Son," 
said the radiant Presence, " hadst thou neglected thy daily duty, I should 
have departed and thou wouldst have seen me no more." 

As to the motives, beyond those already indicated, which may attract 
to this world the denizens of another, there is a certain difference of 
opinion among spiritualists. Some believe they have detected evidence 
that communications and influences occasionally come to us from spirits 
in the other world who are moved by malevolent intentions, unfortunate 
beings, slaves of the senses, unfitted yet for higher enjoyment, and at- 
tracted still to former scenes of sensual indulgence. If this be so, it is 
evident that communion with spirits of such a character might, to the 
weak-minded, be as pernicious as intercourse with similar beings during 
their life on earth ; and that the danger is as great of yielding to indis- 
criminate influence of spirits as of admitting promiscuous company from 
among men. 

My own personal experience, extending through twelve years, has 
yielded no reliable examples of this. I believe it to be true, as a general 
rule, applicable both to mundane and to ultra-mundane communications, 
that, in our various moods, we usually attract those who resemble us in 
sentiment and character ; yet, in both cases, there may be exceptions ; 
many allege that, in their spiritual experience, they have found such. In 
that case it becomes a duty to take precautions which shall seclude from 
influences that might tempt to vice ; just as we would do, if similarly 
beset by worldly intrusions. A resolute will and timely prudence may 
suffice for our protection in either case ; especially if fortified, as I think 
virtuous effort is wont to be, by beneficent spiritual agency. That, in 
many cases, this may be called out by " effectual fervent prayer " there 
seems to be sufficient proof. 



25 



I have not found any reliable evidence that physical power exerted by 
spirits, though sometimes sufficient to produce death, if violence were 
intended, has in point of fact, resulted in causing to any one serious per- 
sonal injury. This seems to indicate either that power for evil, exerted 
by spirits towards human beings, is restrained, or else that, among the 
class of spirits which visit earth, vicious motive does not prevail. 

Upon the whole the better opinion seems to be that the chief dangers 
in communion with spirits arise either from the tendency of the human 
mind, when engaged in a novel study and meeting with extraordinary 
results, to indulge in extravagance and drift into easy credulity and crude 
hypothesies, or else from too exclusive devotion, throughout a long term, 
to one subject ; a habit which tends to unsettle the judgment and produce 
an abormal condition of feeling and of mind. Such extremes are of 
unhealthy influence, intellectually and morally, Implicit faith, adopted 
without reference to internal evidence or to the dictates of the judgment 
which God has given us, whether that faith be in dogmas of mundane or 
of ultra mundane origin, leads to a state of things where would be lack- 
ing not only the exercise of reason, but, at last, reason itself. Use, to an 
extent which it is difficult to determine, is necessary to continued exis- 
tence. The eyes of fishes, found far in the interior of the Mammoth 
Cave of Kentucky, shut out forever from the light of day, are rudimen- 
tal only. 

Such considerations as these have caused doubts in the minds of many 
as to the expediency of investigating, by experiment, the broad question 
touching the reality of ultra mundane intervention. It is an inquiry, 
they think, fraught with danger to human welfare and happiness. Some 
danger, beyond question, there is. What thing in nature is one-sided? 
What study may not be injudiciously undertaken or imprudently pursued? 
Something, in all human endeavors, we must risk ; and that risk is the 
greatest, usually, for the most important objects. All religious researches 
involve more risk than secular : they demand, therefore, greater caution 
and a more dispassionate spirit. Are we to avoid them for that reason ? 
Would the world be benefited by their interdiction? 

So far as facts indicate the existence, in the next world, of spirits still 
stained with the vices of this, they afford us a grave and a practical lesson, 
Evil habits contracted here, cannot be cast off, like a soiled garment, as 
soon as we go hence, nor yet atoned for by vicarious suffering. Would 
we fit ourselves for the enjoyments of a higher sphere ? We must begin 
now, while yet we may. We must abstain from selfish and unbridled 
license of passion ; bearing in mind that such excesses may blend to 
spiritual light. Their possessors may awake in another world, strangers 
and aliens, stumbling as if in outer darkness ; perhaps incapable not only 
to enjoy but to perceive. 



26 



In tills view Spiritualists regard their doctrine, wisely interpreted, as 
one which leads us upwards rto the highest destiny. We are, in a meas- 
ure, the architects of our own future : inflicting our own punishments, 
selecting our own rewards. Our righteousness is a meed to be patiently 
earned, not miraculously bestowed, nor mysteriously imputed. Surely a 
wholesome doctrine ! What motive to exertion in self-culture can be 
proposed to man more powerful than the assurance that not an effort to 
train our hearts or store our minds, made here in time, but has its result 
and its reward hereafter, in eternity ? 

Thus, if it should appear, that through the spiritual phenomena, whether 
spontaneous or evoked, to which the attention of the modern world ha* 
been invited, we may attain some knowledge of our next stage of life, it 
will be impossible to deny the importance of studying them. As the 
result of that study we may obtain rather outlines, discerned as through 
a glass darkly, than any distinct filling up of the picture of our future 
home. Yet enough may be disclosed to produce, on human life, a most 
salutary influence, and to cheer the darkest days of our pilgrimage here 
with the confident assurance that not an aspiration after good that fades, 
nor a dream of the beautiful that vanishes, during the earth-phase of life, 
but will find a noble field and fair realization when the pilgrim has cast 
off his burden and reached a better land. 

The essential we may substantiate. If reliance can be placed on the 
best authenticated examples of the phenomena in question, they not only 
prove (what, indeed, naturally suggests itself,) that it is the body only 
which imposes the shackles of distance, but they afford evidence also that 
the released spirit instinctively seeks its selected ones, and attains the 
spot where cluster its affections. 

But if, hereafter, the principle of insulation which prevails throughout 
this earthly pilgrimage is to give place to the spirit of communion 
unchecked by space ; if in another phase of life desire is to correspond 
to locomotion ; if, there, to long for association is to obtain it, if to love 
is to mingle in the society of the loved ; what an element, not of passive 
feeling but of active organization, is human Sympathy to become ! And 
how much that would render this world too blessed to leave is in store 
for us in another ! 

If w r e sit down in our calmest and most dispassionate moments to con- 
sider how much of our highest and least selfish pleasures, moral, social, 
intellectual, has been due to a daily interchange of thought and feeling 
between kindred minds and hearts, and if we reflect that all the other 
losses and crosses of life have been as nothing when compared with those 
which, by distance and by death, our severed sympathies and affections 
have suffered, we maybe led to conclude that the single change above indi- 



27 



cated as appertaining to our next phase of life will suffice there to assure 
a happy existence to pure miuds and genial hearts ; to those who in this 
world, erring and -frail as they may have been, have not wholly quenched 
the spirit of light ; with whom the voice within has still been more potent 
than the din without ; who have cherished, if often in silence and secret, 
God's holy instincts, the flowers that are still to bloom ; and who may 
hope, in that Hereafter where like will attract its like, to find a home 
where never shall enter the Summoning Angel to announce the separa- 
tion of its inmates — a home of unsundered affections among the just and 
good. 

Restricted as to time, I feel how bare and imperfect is the outline 
which I have been able to give you of Spiritualism, its doctrines and its 
tendencies. It is a subject that cannot be set forth in an hour, nor satis- 
factorily studied, except through years of patient observation. 

The essential is that we should study it with enlarged views, in its 
broad phase, as one of the vital elements in an enlightened Christian 
faith. The scriptures teach that, in former days, direct communications 
from Heaven to Earth were of frequent occurrence ; and they nowhere 
declare that these communications were to cease. They are Spiritualists 
to whatever sect formally appertaining, who believe that such intercourse 
has not ceased, but is still to be obtained, if we seek it wisely and in a 
Catholic spirit, direct and genuine. Such a belief awakens gratitude to 
God, for this modern expression of His eternal love and care for man. 

Spiritualism is spreading as fast as its best friends can desire ; and, I 
think, in manner the most desirable, not as a distinct sect ; not as a sepa- 
rate church, with its w-ritten creed and its ordained ministers and its formal 
professors. It spreads, silently through the agency of daily intercourse, 
in the privacy of the domestic circle. It invades the churches already 
established, not as an opponent but as an ally. It modifies the creed 
and softens the asperities of Protestant and Romanist, of Presbyterian 
and Episcopalian, of Baptist and Methodist, of Unitarian and Universa- 
list. It leavens, with invigorating and spiritualizing effect, the religious 
sentiment of the age ; increasing its vitality, enlivening its convictions. 

It is not a sect, yet no sect ever spread with the same rapidity, nor 
ever obtained, in so brief a term of existence, a controlling influence over 
so large a fraction of manhood. 

By many its truths are disputed still ; but, except by the bigoted or 
the ignorant, they are no longer despised. In my judgment, they will 
richly repay a study. It is good to take with us through life a great 
and encouraging subject. We feel this the mGre as we advance in years. 
As to that cf which I have been speaking, eminently true is the happy 



28 



expression of a modern author, that, " in journeying with it we go; 
towards the sun, and the shadow of our burden falls behind us." 

The President. 
Unitarianism was a little late. It is very apt to be a little late. It 
was rather late this morning. I hope it will not be late to-morrow. I 
shall ask your attention now (though I shall not have to ask it) to Rev. 
John Weiss. 

Remarks of Rev. John Weiss. 

Mr. Chairman : 

I am afraid you will not say, " Better late than never." I am afraid 
that I shall not speak the words you want to hear to-day. I certainly 
shall not speak adequately, for I feel impressed with the greatness of this 
movement, and of this occasion. I feel very much impressed also, when 
I look over the heads of the men and women who compose the immor- 
tality of this audience, who are sitting and who are standing before me. 
As if, indeed, I could say, or as if anybody else on this platform could 
rightly say, or rightly prefigure and lay before you, what is to be the 
prospect of free religion in America — the greatest of all subjects, as 
great as the war through which we have passed ; as great as the result 
of this glorious contest, and with the same meaning ; for free religion in 
America means emancipation of the souls of the men and women who 
live in this Republic. Emancipation ! How is that to be done ? Not 
by Unitarianism of any stripe or color. Not by anti-supernaturalism ; 
not by supernaturalism of any sort. If I this morning were disposed to 
press my own view, and to state my position before you, and to insist 
upon it that the road to free religion in America lies through my idiosyn- 
cracy, I should say to you that the first thing you had to do was to empty 
all your minds clean of all belief in the miraculous ; of all belief in the 
preternatural ; of all past or present belief in any form of supernatural- 
ism ; and to remand yourselves back to the operations of your intelli- 
gence ; to the strictly scientific movement of God's thought ; of the divine 
mind, as it is presented to you in the daily facts of the universe ; of his- 
tory ; of the ordinary life of man and women ; — to believe nothing that 
does not belong to the logic of God. 

I do not desire to press that view upon you this morning, or to claim 
your attention for that, which I do in my very heart of hearts, believe is 
going to be the route of emancipated America, — faith that is in the di- 
vine thought of God's mind ; not in Scripture ; not in prophecy ; not in 
the old stories of the Old or New Testament ; not in any new story 
whatever, but in the ordinary processes of history, of psychology, of an- 



29 



thropology, and of all scientific, all vital, substantial truth. That many 
of you differ from me on this point, I have no doubt. I see here in the 
Hall, this morning, old-fashioned Unitarians, who fought at Syracuse for 
the preamble, the sense of which, that lay underneath the fight, being 
that our Lord and Master was a supernaturally constructed, and super- 
naturally nourished man. And I see in the hall excellent old Unitarians 
and very excellent new Unitarians, who tried to persuade me that I 
could fight for such a preamble as that, because they did n't mean any- 
thing by it, except what was strictly said, namely, that there was in some 
way or other, such a thing as a Lord and Master. And I see in the 
hall, believers in the modern doctrine of spiritualism, who have just lis- 
tened to a statement from one of the most distinguished members of their 
brotherhood. I do not believe in old Unitarianism ; I do not believe in 
the supernatural Lordship of Jesus Christ, nor of any other man ; I do 
not believe one fact, or one story, or one suggestion of modern spiritual- 
ism. Not one jot or tittle of the whole, on either side, do I believe. Of 
course you will let me say so. In the. interest of free religion, I am free 
this morning to tell you what I do, and what I do not believe, as you are 
free also to make your statement here. But I wish to advance beyond 
this, and to reach that heart of the question which lies far beyond any 
form of Orthodox or Liberallbelief. It is this, that free religion in Amer- 
ica depends upon the way in which your souls press onward to find 
the presence of God in America ; to find the ever-present inspiration in 
your minds, and in your hearts this moment, while you stand in that 
aisle this morning. I believe, friends and brothers, that, casting aside all 
preferences, every limitation, every partial belief, not stopping to empha- 
size even anti-supernaturalism, nor the single thoughts that are subsumed 
in this great movement, as God himself this moment subsumes you all, 
men and women, and at this moment takes you up in the hollow of His 
hand, we must have the liberal religion of His immediate presence. And 
if we ever emphasized what is subsumed, it is that we may proceed to 
the great work of emancipating our minds from all the Old Testaments 
and New Testaments supernaturally intrepreted, from old statements and 
new statements, from specialties of every description, from partialities 
and personalities, from temperaments of every shade and color, leaving 
them out of the way, putting them down and tramping them under feet, 
— as we press forward to discover and obey that voice of what the 
Heavenly Father means this morning, as He speaks to our secret heart ; 
to hear God's immediate purposes for to-day's America. To every kind 
of religionist, what does He say, what does He propose, what is the secret 
whisper, what is the secret pressure of that divine influence, that is now 
striving to fuse you all into one blood and one faith, and make you in 



30 



truth and in fact, brother, and children of the ever-present Father ; for 
He tells you this morning what your religion ought to be this afternoon ; 
He will tell you this moment what you shall do when the hour of noon 
strikes to-day, the hour of duty, the hour of present need, the hour of 
brotherhood, of pure philanthropy, of simple truthfulness between man 
and man, the hour of Yea and Nay. Whatsoever is more than that 
will bring evil to free religion in America ; your minds will not become 
emancipated, and there will not be organized here a true and perfect 
Commonwealth of God. Press onward to that, with the bayonet thrust 
of criticism, with the touch of your moral purpose. Press onward to 
that, letting the light of your moral sense shine before the men of this 
country, — that, and not your theology, that, and the light of the morn- 
ing of the moral sense that dawns to-£lay, and will shine to-morrow before 
your fellowmen, will convert them from Orthodoxy, and from their moral 
infidelities — yes and from Atheism, because it is the ever present light 
of the ever-present God. Press on, press through all obstructions, all 
obstacles ; tear down this insurgent barricade, piled up from the rubbish 
of all the streets of all the cities in America ; things so insignificant in 
themselves, that become, when heaped together, a barricade against the 
incoming, the inflowing of the Father. Tear down the obstructions and 
let the tide roll in. Let your heart be opeiled to receive that tide which 
beats against your hearts and minds this morning ; those little indenta- 
tions upon the great shore of time, into which the waves of eternity shall 
come, bringing (rod's gracious breath, and bracing us with the clear, 
fresh brine of God's hard truths now spoken to America. Then Amer- 
ica may have free religion — greatest of all her religions — and the last 
result of the great war that is still waged for America's emancipation. 

The President. 
I think that if that is the last word of the Unitarians, we are all ready 
to respond heartily. We are yet to hear from the Progressive Friends, 
and you are invited to listen to Mr. Oliver Johnson. 

Remarks op Oliver Johnson. 

The Progressive Friends. 

I have been requested to give an account of the Society of Progres- 
sive Friends, its origin, its principles, and its aims ; and I will endeavor 
to do so with all possible brevity. 

The society had its root in primitive Quakerism, and was the immedi- 
ate result of divisions in the Hicksite or Liberal wing of the Quaker 
body upon questions of moral reform, especially upon the anti-slavery 



31 



question. Among those who are not familiar with the history of the 
anti-slavery movement in this country, the impression is quite common 
that, from the outset, it received the hearty co-operation of the Society 
of Friends, which, with a single exception, was the only religious body 
in the land that forbade its members to hold slaves. But this impres- 
sion is altogether erroneous. Individual Quakers, some of them emi- 
nent in the Society, did indeed espouse the cause ; but the body as such, 
represented by its monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings, not only 
showed it no favor, but exerted a very powerful influence against it. The 
strong anti-slavery spirit of an earlier day — the spirit of Woolman, Lay, 
and Benezet — had given place to indifference and compromise. The fact 
that Quakers did not themselves hold slaves was urged as a reason why 
they should be excused from taking part in efforts for the abolition of sla- 
very ! The ecclesiastical system of the body, in some respects the subtlest 
and most potent in the whole Christian world, was brought to bear against 
the new movement. The Society's houses of worship, with few exceptions, 
were closed against anti-slavery lectures ; its most influential preachers 
and elders exhorted the members not to allow themselves to be drawn into 
an agitation originating, as they said, " in the will of man," but to " keep 
in the quiet," to " wait God's time," and " mind their own business." 
Those who, in opposition to this counsel from the " high seats," took 
part with the abolitionists, were treated as unsound, and spoken of, in 
public and private, as having brought reproach upon the denomination 
by " going into the mixture " — in other words, by joining with those 
outside of the body in philanthropic efforts. A religious society which 
had its birth in one of the fiercest excitements recorded in ecclesiastical 
history, and whose founders were " sons of thunder," making the earth 
tremble beneath their feet, had so far lost its ancient spirit that it could 
not bear the excitement necessarily caused by the earnest enforcements 
of its own boasted testimonies. The contrast between ancient Quaker- 
ism and that which could not bear the cross of reform, was fitly described 
by one who said that, whereas in the days of Fox, one Quaker was 
enough to shake the country for twenty miles around, it now took all 
the earnest men inhabiting that space to shake one Quaker ! 

As I have said, some of the noblest men and women in the Society of 
Friends, of both the Orthodox and Liberal wings, in spite of the coldness 
or opposition of the leaders, joined the anti-slavery movement at an early 
day, and remained faithful to the end. The first ^President of the first 
Anti-Slavery Society — the parent of all the rest (organized in Boston 
January 1, 1832) — was a Quaker; the poet, whose trumpet strains did 



* Arnold BufFum. 



32 



so much to stir and rouse the people to a sense of the slave's wrongs, 
was a Friend ; and every important anti-slavery meeting had its sprink- 
ling of " broad brims " and " plain bonnets," worn by men and women 
whose Quakerism was too vital to be smothered by ecclesiastical author- 
ity, too firmly rooted to be swept away by floods of superstition from 
the high seats, and who had the courage to follow the " inner light," 
though in so doing they were compelled to disregard the " advice " of 
the yearly meeting. The zeal of these in the cause of the slave involved 
the whole sect in the agitation which the leaders were so anxious to 
avoid. Monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings were scenes of earnest 
conflict between those who opposed and those who favored the anti- 
slavery societies. Not a few of the latter were disowned, while others 
turned sadly away from the meetings of the sect, grieved and digusted 
by conduct which seemed to them wholly inconsistent with its funda- 
mental principles. In 1841, the disownment of the late venerable and 
beloved Isaac T. Hopper, by the New York monthly, quarterly, and 
yearly meetings, caused intense excitement in the whole Hicksite body. 
Friend Hopper was widely known, especially for his efforts to assist the 
escape of fugitive slaves, no less than two thousand five hundred of 
whom, it is said, were indebted to him for aid in their flight from the 
house of bondage. In 1840 he became a member of the Executive 
Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and its agent for the 
publication of the National Anti-Slavery Standard. He was arraigned 
upon a charge of being " concerned in the publication of a paper calcu- 
lated to promote disunity among Friends ; " and for this, and this only, 
was he expelled from the sect ! Charles Marriott, another venerable 
man, whose name was a synonymn for every virtue that can adorn the 
Christian character, was al§o expelled for the same reason. The leaders 
intended and hoped, by these and other similar acts of ecclesiastical tyr- 
anny, to overawe and silence the abolitionists in the Society. Vain 
delusion ! They only created a more intense excitement, and fanned 
into an open flame the smouldering fires of anti-slavery in almost every 
monthly, quarterly, and yearly meeting in the country. The conflict 
deepened, till, in 1848, the Green Plain (Ohio) quarterly meeting, a 
constituent of the yearly meeting of Indiana, asserted its independence, 
taking the name and adopting the Congregational system of church gov- 
ernment. In 1849 a considerable number of persons, mostly members 
of the Genesee yearly meeting (Hicksite), met near Waterloo, Seneca 
County, New York, and organized a society under the name of " Gene- 
see Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends." It subsequently took 
the name of " Progressive Friends," but is now known by the name of 
" Friends of Human Progress." 



33 



The first Society that took the name of " Progressive Friends " was 
organized at Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, in September, 1852. 
Most, but not all, of its members were seceders from the Ohio Yearly 
Meeting (Hicksite). This society, I believe, is now extinct. 

The next society that took the name was organized at Kennett, 
Chester County, Pa., in May, 1853, by a Conference, the object of 
which was thus set forth in the call of the same : 

" The various religious denominations in the land are arrayed against 
the progressive spirit of the age, and by their very structure, assump- 
tions, and regulations, cannot occupy a co-operative position, because 
they impose fetters upon freedom of speech and of conscience, by re- 
quiring a slavish conformity in matters of abstract faith and sectarian 
discipline. This has led and is leading to extensive secessions from 
such organizations in all parts of the country, leaving the seceders gen- 
erally in a scattered and isolated condition, w hose talents, influence and 
means might be profitably concentrated for the advancement of the 
world-embracing cause of Human Brotherhood, and who are yearning 
for some form of association, at once simple, free and attractive." 

The call invited " not only the members of the Society of Friends, 
but all who felt the want of social and religious co-operation," to come 
together and " deliberate upon such a plan of organization as may com- 
mend itself to the judgment of those assembled, and to take action upon 
such other subjects, pertaining to human duty and welfare, as may appear 
to demand the attention of the assembly." The Conference was num- 
erously attended, and resulted in the formation of a society under the 
name of " The Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting of Progressive Friends," 
the aims and purposes of which were set forth in a carefully considered 
" Exposition of Sentiments," addressed to " the friends of pure and un- 
defined religion, and to all seekers after truth, of whatever name or 
denomination." This document was extensively published, and, having 
found admission to the New York Tribune, attracted the attention of 
many friends of progress and reform throughout the country, by whom 
the new society was greeted as the happy augury of a new era in the 
history of religious associations. 

The distinguishing characteristics of the Society, as presented in the 
" Exposition," are the following : 

1. It has no creed, but invites to membership ".all who recognize the 
Equal Brotherhood of the Human Family, and who acknowledge the 
duty of defining and illustrating their faith in God by lives of personal 
purity, and works of beneficence and charity." " If, by any possibility," 
they say, " there should be found here and there a sincere inquirer after 
truth, who may not feel himself included in this invitation, we shall still 



34 



bid him welcome to our assemblies, and listen with patience to whatever 

his highest convictions may prompt him to offer." " It is our 

cherished purpose to restore the union between Religion and Life, and 
to place works of goodness and mercy far above theological speculations 
and scholastic subtleties of doctrine. Christianity, as it presents itself 
to our minds, is too deep, too broad, and too high, to be brought within 
the cold propositions of the theologian. We should as soon think of 
bottling up the sunshine for the use of posterity, as of attempting to ad- 
just the free and universal principles taught and exemplified by Jesus of 

Nazareth to the angles of a man-made creed." "Identity of 

object, oneness of spirit in respect to the practical duties of life, the com- 
munion of soul with soul in a common love of the beautiful and true, 
and a common aspiration after moral excellence, — these are our bond 
of union." 

2. It has no discipline, and seeks to keep itself free of moral contami- 
nation, not by rules for the expulsion of bad people from its fold, but by 
constant activity in works of reform, which attract evil-minded persons 
only through what is good in themselves ; in other words, by keeping 
the moral atmosphere of the body so sweet and pure that the devotees 
of sin and wrong cannot find a comfortable refuge therein, but must 
choose between reforming and withdrawing. A church which finds 
itself under the necessity of expelling immoral persons from its pale by 
a formal vote, is no longer worthy to be called Christian, and ought to 
be at once dissolved. On the other hand, the right of any individual to 
withdraw from the Society, without being required to give reasons for 
so doing, and without being subjected to official censure, is distinctly 
recognized. The association sets up no claim to supernatural or divine 
authority, but confesses itself to be simply human, a means and not an 
end, the servant, not the master, of its members, to be perpetuated not 
on account of any inherent sacredness in itself, but only so long as it is 
found to answer the purposes for which it was made. It is scarcely 
possible for a society resting upon such principles to become a covert 
for superstition and despotic authority ; but if it should ever be thus 
prostituted, its destruction would be alike easy and inevitable, since 
there is no ecclesiastical system — no institution — to be taken out of 
the way. 

3, The society has no prescribed forms of worship or procedure, nor 
is it bound by any precedents, whether made by itself or others. Its 
members meet together upon terms of perfect equality, with only such 
restraints upon speech and action as are imposed by mutual respect and 
affection, and a common desire that everything should be " done decently 
and in order." No subject that concerns the moral and religious welfare 



35 



of the human race is out of order in its assemblies ; and, having no eccle- 
siastical or sectarian machinery to be worked, it is free to enter at once 
upon the consideration of those great moral and practical issues which, 
in the providence of God, are ever demanding attention, and which, in 
most religious bodies, are either thrust aside or permitted to occupy only 
a subordinate place. 

But, while the society welcomes to membership all who wish to 
co-operate with it in works of practical goodness, without inquiring what 
may be the character of their creeds, and while it is mainly devoted to 
philanthropic labors, it must not be inferred that it puts any check upon 
its members in the discussion of theological questions. No one is asked 
or expected to keep silence upon such questions, but all are encouraged 
to speak their minds freely, as well as expected to listen candidly to views 
differing never so widely from their own. It is only by a free and un- 
trammelled discussion of such topics that we can hope to arrive at the 
truth ; and Progressive Friends believe that in doing the will of God 
by laboring together in works of charity and mercy, they qualify them- 
selves to discuss theological questions with profit. " He that doeth the 
will of God," said Jesus, " shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of 
God or whether I speak of myself." 

4. The society recognizes, not only in its name, but in its very struc- 
ture, the law of human progress as applicable to religious associations, 
no less then to individuals. It repudiates as superstitious and absurd 
the too prevalent idea that churches organized after a prescribed pattern, 
hold a mysterious organic relation with God, and are the official channels 
of divine influence. It does not for a moment suppose that it is possible 
for one generation to make a religious society that shall completely answer 
the wants of another ; and hence it holds that such societies should be so 
simple in their structure that they may with the greatest possible facility 
be charged to bring them into harmony with every newly-discovered 
truth, and made to conform to the ripest experiences of their members. 

Thus far I have spoken only of the yearly meeting ; but I must not 
omit to say that the Progressive Friends of Pennsylvania hold a meet- 
ing every First day, in an edifice erected by themselves twelve years 
ago, and known as Longwood Meeting House. This meeting has been 
conducted hitherto after the manner of Friends, except that it has not an 
order of persons set apart as ministers or elders, and allows all to speak 
who may wish to do so. When it is known that good speaking may be 
expected, the meeting is generally large ; at other times it is small. 
There is nothing in the principles of the society to forbid the employment 
of a salaried religious teacher, and many of the members have so far 
overcome the prejudices resulting from their Quaker education as to be 



36 



in favor of doing so. A Sunday School has already been established 
under very encouraging auspices, and a cabinet organ in the meeting- 
house shows that the society has made such progress that it begins to 
appreciate the value of music as a means of exciting and deepening re- 
ligious feeling. 

The yearly meeting never fails to attract, day after day, a crowd of peo- 
ple too large to be comfortably accommodated in the meeting-house. It is 
always an occasion of high moral and social interest, and the people among 
whom it is held value it accordingly. It has done much in the last fourteen 
years to break the bonds of sectarianism, to disseminate enlightened and 
liberal views of religion, to promote the struggling reforms of the times, and 
to prepare the way for a more complete co-operation in works of practical 
righteousness of all those of whatever name, whose hearts are one in the 
faith that the whole human race are one brotherhood, and that pure reli- 
gion and undefiled before God does not consist in forms and ceremonies, 
and systems of theology, but in loving God and doing good to mankind. 
To this end all its energies have been constantly directed, and with re- 
sults which encourage us to persevere in our labors. Among those who 
have felt a warm personal interest in the movement, and who, at one 
time or another, have given it the benefit of their personal presence and 
efficient aid in the yearly meeting, may be gratefully mentioned William 
Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, T. W. Higginson, Samuel J. May, 
Lucretia Mott, David A. Wasson, Moncure D. Conway, A. D. Mayo, 
Frances D. Gage, George Thompson, Theodore Tilton, Anna E. Dick- 
inson, and Theodore D. Weld. Our printed pages are luminous with the 
thoughts of these earnest reformers, and with those of Lydia Maria 
Child, Samuel Johnson, John G. Whittier, Samuel Longfellow, James 
Freeman Clarke, Gerritt Smith, Charles K. Whipple, Joshua R. Gid- 
dings, and many others, whose devotion to truth has endeared their names 
to the friends of progress in every part of the country. 

Our fifteenth yearly meeting will be held next week, commencing on 
Thursday and closing on Saturday. Our beloved and highly-esteemed 
friend, Robert Collyer, of Chicago, has promised to be with us on the 
occasion, and we are anticipating a season of more than usual interest 
and importance. If, among these present in this conference, there are 
any who feel attracted to our meeting, they may be assured of a cordial 
welcome to the hearts and homes of the Progressive Friends of Penn- 
sylvania. 



37 



The President. 
A great deal has been said about opposition between science and re- 
ligion. There are some persons who believe that science and religion are 
one. Francis E. Abbot will say a word to you on that point. 

Remarks of Francis E. Abbot. 

Brothers and Sisters: — 

I have for months looked forward to this day with hope and earnest 
expectation. It will, I am convinced, be memorable in the history of free 
thought and unsectarian religion. If, with a deep and unselfish devotion 
to the spiritual welfare of mankind, we here and now form an association 
which, respecting to the uttermost the sacred freedom of the individual 
soul, shall yet efficiently unite our individual endeavors to hallow Amer- 
ican civilization by a profounder consciousness of the Divine, I believe 
that our fellowmen will not willingly let die the memory of this day. No 
man can foresee its influence or results. Such a fellowship will take up 
a work neglected or refused by all existing churches. If faithful to its 
own principles, it may yet prove the first stone of the church of Human- 
ity, which, accepting the name of no man or nation, shall build on simple 
faith in human nature, and stand with open doors of perpetual welcome 
for all who are moved by aspiration for larger truth and purer life. A 
mere handful of men and women though we are, I cannot think of the 
spiritual grandeur of our undertaking without a sense of awe, — without 
a deep and burning enthusiasm kindled in the very core of my being. 
We are but instruments in the hand of the Infinite Spirit. He alone is 
the architect of our edifice : let no self-will or self-seeking of ours mar 
the perfect beauty of his handiwork. 

Why are we here to-day ? What is the meaning of this assembly, and 
of the movement out of which it has grown ? I have been requested to 
give my own answer to these questions, and something within has for- 
bidden me to refuse the attempt ; but no other person will be at all 
responsible for what I may say. 

The radical movement, then, is not a " Christian " one in the common 
meaning of that word, although, in its best meaning, I believe it is emi- 
nently Christian. We profess no especial discipleship to Jesus. We 
are disciples simply of the Spirit and the Truth, wherever they are 
found. We acknowledge no authority, whether in thought or action, but 
the intrinsic authority of truth, righteousness, and love. To this we bow 
most reverently. We utterly discard that principle of authority upon 
which all organized " Christian" churches are built, and take our stand 
on the ground of spiritual freedom, — free religion. 

The reason of our present meeting, and the dominant idea of the whole 



38 



radical movement, are to be found, I believe, in those two words, — 
Spiritual Freedom. They mean faith in religion, faith in science, faith 
in the natural harmony of these two. It is this equal and perfect faith 
in religion and in science, as natural friends and allies, which distinguishes 
us from others. The " Christian " church has faith in religion, but not 
much in science ; the world outside has faith in science, but not much in 
religion ; they both believe in a natural enmity between religion and 
science, and are therefore at deadly feud with each other. 

Now this collision between the church and the world, religion and 
science, seems to us mistaken and disastrous in the last degree. Science 
can alone teach us what we ought to think; religion can alone make us 
what we ought to be. Properly understood, they belong to entirely dif- 
ferent spheres, and cannot clash ; they move in parallel planes, and par- 
allels never meet. When men are content to let Science create their 
creeds, and Religion create their characters and lives, the ancient quarrel 
will be healed. It is only the usurpations of dogmatic theology, pretend^ 
ing as it does to be religion, and arrogating the right to dictate to men 
their beliefs, which have engendered this fierce conflict between the scien- 
tific and religious tendencies of the age. There is no theology, except 
as part of universal science. Religion is simply 'a. fact of human nature, 
— the fact of aspiration and upward endeavor ; of development into the 
spiritual ideal of gravitation towards an infinite spiritual Life : and the 
interpretation of this fact, together with what it implies, belongs to science 
alone, the universal interpreter of all facts. The old theology, upheld 
more or less by all organized " Christian " churches as part and parcel 
of religion, if not religion itself, must utterly perish, w r ith its various 
roots of " infallible authority," and its countless branches of creeds and 
dogmas ; a new theology, created and guaranteed by science as the sober 
interpretation of the facts of man's spiritual nature, must grow up and 
take its place. In this way, and, as I believe, in no other way, can faith 
in science be made compatible with faith in religion. Alas for mankind 
if faith in either is suffered to die out of human hearts ! Backward will 
turn the shadow on the dial-plate of human progress, to point either to the 
darkness of mediasval superstition or to the godlessness of a French 
Revolution. 

But of such a result there need be no fear. The radical faith in 
spiritual freedom means at the same time faith in free thought, which 
is only another name for Science, and faith in spirit, which is only 
another name for Religion. There, I believe, lies the key to reconcilia- 
tion between the church and the world, — there, and there alone. We 
believe in Science with an enthusiastic faith ; let it prove what it may 
it cannot prove a lie. We claim to be in profound sympathy with mod- 



39 



ern thought, and hail with joy every fresh discovery of Science, no mat- 
ter what it proves or disproves. We wish to show that true thought, 
whether ancient or modern, leads to a more earnest faith in God. Put a 
deeper faith in Science, and you touch Religion ; put a deeper faith in 
the laws of the outward universe, and you come to the inward universe 
of the human soul, with all its experiences, — its sorrows, its trials, its 
temptations, its aspirations, its ascent to God. Modern thought is fast 
emptying our churches of all who persist in thinking for themselves, and 
too often empties the souls of those who leave them of all faith in reli- 
gion. We do not propose a war of extermination against all the churches 
of Christendom ; but to those who find the churches profitless, w e believe 
that our radical word is a word of faith and new inspiration, and we 
are bound to proclaim it. 

Yes, friends, science and religion, born, as they are, the one from 
man's head, and the other from man's conscience and heart, must be one 
and harmonious, if human nature itself is one and harmonious. They 
are one in God's thought, and by and by will be one in man's experi- 
ence. If, as I believe, science grow T s from our heads, and religion from 
our consciences and hearts, then we may bring these two faiths in sci- 
ence and religion into the unity of a single faith. And what is that ? 
Faith in man, — faith in humanity. Faith in man, with all his 
faculties, unfettered and unrestricted, — that, I am convinced, is the one 
great idea common to all earnest radicals. Here we have a great, in- 
spiring, positive, radical idea, common to all who believe in free reli- 
gion. Radicalism is not a theory, a philosophy, least of all a negation. 
It is a mighty, affirmative faith in man. It prompts to the elevation 
and reform of human society in all possible ways, to the increase of 
fellowship and co-operation among men of all nations and all creeds, to 
the development of the individual soul into its highest and holiest ideal. 
It has brought us together to-day ; and now, what is it going to do with 
us ? Are we going home after our meeting, back to our homes in coun- 
try and city, to say we had a good time, we heard some good words, 
and we feel better for it ? Is that to be all ? God forbid ! God for- 
bid that this shall be all that shall come of this meeting ! If we do 
not pledge ourselves now and forever to the service of mankind in every 
efficient way, God forgive us for our infidelity ! If we go home, as we 
came, separate, without forming a fellowship for the spread of Reli- 
gion without Superstition, God forgive us for our weak-hearted- 
ness ! But I believe we shall be true to the great duty of the hour. 
The times demand an association which shall aim at the increase of 
human brotherhood in spiritual bonds. We proclaim here the natural 
union of Science and Religion, whom God hath joined together, but 



40 



whom man has put asunder. We celebrate here the nuptials of the 
Spirit and the Truth, and the joy which the vision of that marriage 
creates in our own souls, we long to awaken in the souls of our fellow- 
men. The peace that has come to us, we burn to carry to others also. 
If we are radical enough, — if we are fired with a faith in our own idea 
intense enough to make us follow its leadership, — we shall not shrink 
from the great duty laid upon us. There is yet worse bondage than 
that of slavery, — the bondage of superstition and of vice. What a 
grand word was that favorite text of old John Brown, — "Remember 
those that are in bonds as bound with them." Friends, take that home 
to your hearts, and let it lead to a deeper and more whole-souled devo- 
tion to the spiritual emancipation of mankind. Garibaldi proclaimed 
to his followers, " Let those who are in love with cold and hunger, 
wounds and death, follow me ! " Such to-day is the summons of our 
radical idea, — " Follow me ! " We do not expect to hold delightful 
meetings, and enjoy oyster suppers, and listen to fine speeches ; we ex- 
pect to work for great ideas, and to encounter bitter bigotry, hatred, 
slander, and social persecution in the work. That is the bill of fare we 
offer you ; who will come aud taste our dainties ? 

Brothers and sisters, we want to w r ork for humanity. We have a 
new gospel to proclaim, — the gospel of religion and science, two in 
one, — the gospel of faith in man carried out to its extremest conse- 
quences, — the gospel of repose in the Infinite Love which works 
through Universal Law. 'T is a good old word, — I like it. Gospel is 
" good news." We have a new gospel of good news, a radical gospel, 
the gospel of the " enthusiasm of humanity." God grant us power to 
publish this gospel with the earnestness and' self-sacrifice and fire of 
apostles, — grant us a new Pentecostal outpouring of courage and fidelity 
to truth ! Now, as of old, the sneer will come, — " These men are 
drunk with new wine ! " And so we are. It is new wine, and is fast 
bursting the old bottles. Friends, it is time to make new and better 
ones, fit to receive the new vintage of God. Will you help us in the 
work to-day ? 

The President. 
There are those, in this age of science and speculation and doubt, who 
question strongly enough whether religion can legitimate itself in the 
intellect. I would not have you suppose that we doubt that. D. A. 
Wasson will say a word to you on that subject. 

Remarks of D. A. Wasson. 
Not exactly whether, or how, religion can be legitimated by the intel- 



41 



lect ; for I think, — and it is the point of the remarks with which I 
will briefly engage your attention, — that religion is its own logic and its 
own verification, — that it speaks with an absolute voice, in every tone 
of which there is a "Thus saith the Lord," — and that it cannot be sub- 
stantiated and its import sustained otherwise than by itself. 

Most men feel in our age that the grounds of religious credence have 
been shaken. Some centuries ago it was enough to believe simply in the 
church. Every man found it as natural to do so as to breathe; and 
belief in the church included and substantiated for him the whole body 
of religious and moral faith. But that day has passed, and cannot be 
recalled. Then there was a belief in the Bible as infallible to the letter 
and in its literal interpretation. This also did eminent service. It 
stayed the hearts of two centuries at least, making men strong for noble 
work ; for men have strength to do noble work when, and only when, 
they are strong in the firmness and constancy of moral faith in their 
souls. That belief also has passed away ; and now no one is able to 
rely upon it as men could only fifty years ago. And yet it is true now 
as of old, and as it will be forever, that the souls of men live in the life 
of their faith. It is their hold upon supersensual reality whereby they 
stand. It is a light that never shone on sea nor shore, that alone can 
make clear their pathway. They sink as in fathomless bogs, if they have 
nothing firmer than the earth, upon which to tread. And they need, 
they imperatively need, to feel that in the spiritual journeying, which 
they are human souls only as they undertake, they walk upon sure 
ground — that their feet are upon a rock immovable as eternity, and 
that they walk by a guidance which is not probably only, but indubitably, 
trustworthy. They find this no longer in the bulls of popes and deci- 
sions of councils ; they do not find it in the letter of the Bible : and yet 
it must be found. Accordingly, there is much inquiry among earnest 
and thoughtful men to this point, — what are the grounds, whence comes 
the original premise, of spiritual belief? 

Now, there is a class of persons, — with whom in many particulars 
I sympathize warmly, — who hold to the following as a clue: You 
are to think up to God from the outward world, from organized Nature, 
climbing assiduously step by step, till at last by inference upon inference 
you reach the eternal throne. By a similar process, starting from 
below, finding your original data in that which the senses reveal, they 
would have you arrive at all which it is the supreme privilege of man 
to know as true. This seems to me a false process. In my judgment, 
the faith of humanity will never be legitimated in this way. Faith, as I 
think, sets out as it were from the heavens, — begins at the highest point, 
and is able to read a divine import in the letter-press of nature, because 



42 



it brings that import with it. Let me try, — though very briefly, — to 
make this point clear by referring to some obvious analogies. 

Suppose I wish to think a house, to think it from its origin. Where 
shall I begin ? Shall I go to the quarry, and examine the properties of 
rock, to the forest, the mine, the clay-pit, and inspect the properties of 
wood, iron, brick-clay and the like ? And having ascertained these 
properties, shall I reason from them to the house, as if this must logically 
result from them ? Clearly, I shall find in them no logical implication 
of a house. They do not of themselves make the house, they convey no 
logical suggestion of it. We must begin at a different point, — from 
that where the edifice really has its origin. The house begins in the 
mind of a man, in the thought of certain uses dictated in part by his 
physical wants, but still more by his higher sentiments. He thinks of 
all required by a family in the state of cultured civility, the refinements 
of the table, the hospitalities of the household, decent privacies, ele- 
gancies, socialities that have also the grace and sanctity of retirement, 
and whatever else belongs to the use and beauty of domestic life. It is 
that thought which makes the house ; that spiritual force conjures the 
rock from the quarry, the wood, iron and clay from their several places, 
and confers upon them uses, which they are indeed fitted to subserve, 
but which they do not in themselves suggest, and which, moreover, can- 
not be logically inferred from them. 

Or suppose we try to think the genesis and growth of a plant. Where, 
again, is the true beginning ? Shall we set out by examining the pro- 
perties of its constituent elements, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur, 
&c., — seeking to find in them tendencies, from which the plant may be, 
and must be, logically inferred? Obviously, we shall not get on in that 
way. It is the vital genius of the plant, the living idea of it in its 
wholeness, which, going before the association of these elements, and ex- 
ercising upon them a subtile transforming control, makes them to be 
somewhat, which, in themselves they neither are, nor tend to become, 
nor suggest to the intelligence of man. 

Let us apply these analogies. There is a method of thought much in 
vogue, which assumes that in order to arrive at mind, at morals, or at 
spiritual ideas, we are to begin from below, and infer these from inferior 
elements. By this method there has already been attained a scheme of 
metaphysics, a theory of morals, and lastly, a system of speculation which 
is dignified with the title of Natural Theology, — a strange cob-web, I 
think, as ever was spun. Its application to metaphysics I would gladly 
consider, but have not leisure here and now. Its application to morals, 
this I must find leisure to consider. 

It proceeds thus : There are courses of conduct which contribute to 



43 

the good of mankind, and others which oppose it. There is a varying 
body of opinions concerning the bearing of actions upon the said good of 
mankind. These opinions, taken collectively, constitute, it is said, the 
morality of the human race, such as it is. The morals of humanity, ac- 
cordingly, are simply the sum total of its judgments upon the practi- 
cal tendency of actions, — whether likely to prove beneficial on the one 
hand, or on the other hand injurious, to the general interest of men. 
That is an easy-going kind of theory, and it seems to jump with the 
humor of this age. We are fond, now-a-days, of easy, off-hand expla- 
nations, which leave room for nothing " mystical," — many, at least, 
are so. 

But what is it that, binds the individual to the general good ? The 
bond, the bond, — whence comes that? The ideal obligation, felt 
in every man's soul in proportion as he is indeed a human being, 
— this constitutes the essence, the fact itself, of man's moral genius ; 
and it can no more be composed out of this dust-heap of opinions 
than the vital genius of the plant can be composed from elements 
outside of itself. An architectonic principle, a shapely and shap- 
ing genius, it utilizes those judgments, those opinions, interfusing 
them with the sacred significance of Law. Hence, while mere error of 
opinion has in it nothing interesting, and becomes ludicrous in its excess, 
error of moral judgment may, if only it exhibit with might the pure 
stress of moral obligation, engage interest intensely, and communicate to 
the wildest vagaries an air almost of majesty. The Puritans erred in 
opinion strangely, and we should say erred ludicrously, were there not 
that in their sombre enthusiasm, — that moral daring, that lofty response 
to the name of duty, — which redeems all errors from ridicule, and 
makes blunder itself sublime. 

Those thinkers from below, who insist on making up principles out of 
the native powers of inferior elements, do indeed attempt to supply this 
bond, or rather to furnish for it a plausible substitute. Some say that 
the sole sanction and bond of duty is the fear of punishment. Whatever, 
therefore, one can do with impunity, he has the right to do. Might, 
therefore, makes right : if a thief can punish others more heavily for 
resisting his theft, than they can punish him for stealing, it follows 
that, though they have the correcter opinion as to that which tends to 
the general good, he has the force and bond of right on his side. Glos- 
sin's motto, " He who takes it, makes it," would be good scripture ; and 
the commands of God himself would be valid as commands only because 
he is stronger than all mortal strength. Others, as Professor Bain, regard 
this bond of duty, this sense of obligation, as the factitious product of 
education. We are made, forsooth, to feel ourselves morally obliged to 



44 



regard the good of others, though the feeling is nothing but a mere brew- 
age from words ! Mankind cheats each new-cGmer into this useful, but 
intrinsically false, persuasion ! In other words, the sense of obligation is, 
in the purest meaning of the word, a superstition ; so that these parti- 
sans of enlightenment have set aside the superstitions of Catholicism or 
the like, only to find that a universal susperstition is the source of all 
rectitude, the guardian of all civilization, the sole pledge of man's fealty 
to man ! 

I put aside all made-up moralities ; and the analogies which have 
been mentioned may serve to show that I have the method of nature to 
sustain me in doing so. The spirit of man beholds the Good, and bows 
itself in inevitable adoration. The moral spirit of man cries out of its 
inscrutable depths, "I ought," when the Good is discerned ; and knows 
of a surety that in doing so, it utters no voice limited in worth and import 
by the measure of one's self-interest, by his attachment to himself, by his 
preference of pleasure to pain, but speaks from the spirit and utters the 
voice of the Eternal Whole. When, with a pure heart and a clear per- 
ception, he makes that majestic confession, the whole universe of God is 
the echo and legitimation of his words. He gives voice to that through 
which ' the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong,' which is the up- 
building genius in every breast, and the marriage bond of souls, making 
across mountains and seas, across clashing interests and dividing times, 
the everlasting unity of the human race. For this is that vernacular of 
humanity that remains unbroken forever, the same in all tongues and in- 
telligible to every ear, the word eternal, the speech, not only of all the 
world, but of all worlds, of earth and heaven ! 

Again, the word God has been said by Coleridge, — and he has spoken 
few things more profound, — to be that by which the Reason enunciates 
its faith in itself. This, therefore, is its primal enunciation, the true 
Beginning of all discourse of reason. In thinking God, or reasoning the 
belief in him, I do not begin with setting religion aside, annulling pro- 
visionally its import, making God problematical, and then proceed, by 
inspecting the world around me, to see whether that will affirm for me 
the significance which I have made bold to silence in my own spirit. 
But the process which I decline is adopted by the professors of " natural 
theology." They would compose a God inferentially. They ask the 
world to push up a line of logic, which shall reach at last to deity. It 
is the modern fashion of Babel-building ; and one which, as I think, no 
confusion of tongues is requisite to render abortive, — this necessity being 
precluded by an antecedent confusion of mind. Let me give an example 
or two of this method. 

One way of proving the existence of God has been to reason from our 



45 



notion of cause. Every effect has a cause ; the world is an effect ; the 
world therefore has a cause. We arrive therefore at that 

Great First cause, least understood," 

(very little understood, I should say), of which Pope, and so many of his 
kith and kin, thought there was clear evidence. But first and cause? 
The two words contradict each other. We know of causation only as 
the chain of connection between phenomena. Its very import is to deny 
an absolute beginning. Every effect has a cause ; but every cause is an 
effect. So much as we know the one fact, we know the other. There 
is precisely the same evidence, the same force of presumption, in the two 
cases. We can indeed conceive of pure spiritual substance, absolute 
creative efficiency, the Original without days, from which the visible 
world exists now ; and this, by accommodation of a word, may be named 
absolute cause ; but in postulating such a cause, we resort to the pure 
import of Reason, to the ideal faith of our souls, bringing a significance 
to outward nature, instead of deriving one from it. It is no observed law 
of causation, no logic of things, which can lead to that conclusion. A 
conclusion indeed, or inference, it cannot be ; this faith is of the soul 
itself, a primal idea and enunciation of man's spiritual intelligence, or it 
is nothing. 

Again, there is the argument of Paley, the " argument of design." 
We see design in the world ; we infer a Designer. Yes, we see design. 
For example, in the fang of the adder or the cobra one may perceive 
design, a good deal of it, and admirably effectuated. That nice little 
sack of excellent venom, so safely bestowed, so ready for use, with such 
an ingenious mechanism for its instantaneous compression ; that exqui- 
sitely fine tube running up the tooth, so fine that its issue at the point 
leaves it still keener than whetted steel, sure to reach the quick, and dis- 
charge into the veins of the victim, be he saint or sinner, hero or hypo- 
crite, the effectual drop; — all this might well be the despair of the 
chemist and the mechanician. I see in it unsurpassed design and incom- 
parable execution. It shows indubitably a matchless artificer. But 
does it give evidence of God ? If one say that it does, I shall have to ask 
him what he means by God. It is clear to me that he and I do not use 
words in the same sense, and therefore shall hardly come to a common 
understanding. 

I must beg leave to tell a story. Chief Justice Parsons, a latitudi- 
narian in theology, was once holding his court in a village where was 
settled as clergyman, a very stringent and very logical Hopkinsian. 
The favorite article in the Hopkinsian creed was the " sovereignty of 



46 



God," or his right to make men for the express purpose of damning them 
eternally, provided he could so best promote his own glory. Sunday 
came, and the clergyman, aware that the great judge would be among 
his auditors, brought forth a discourse upon his favorite topic, which he 
had striven even beyond his wont to make unanswerably logical. In- 
vited to dine with the judge, at the village tavern after church, he said to 
the other with the frankness of a gentleman, " I would gladly know 
what you thought of my sermon." 

" I thought it," answered the great man, t; one of the ablest argu- 
ments I ever heard, — precise in the statement of premises, clear in 
method, irresistible in logic, every way indeed a masterly discourse. If 
the pulpit has many such proficients in logic as yourself, the bar will have 
to look to its laurels." 

" It would be affectation in me," responded the preacher, " not to 
acknowledge the gratification your praise affords me. You will not 
refuse me liberty to say that there is no living man whose approval I 
should value more highly ; and it pleases me the more that I had sup- 
posed your views of the character of God to differ radically from my 
own." 

" How ? " cried the jurist. " Do I understand you ? The character 
of God?" 

" Why — yes, sir, — my topic, you know, was the sovereignty of 
God." 

" I beg your pardon a thousand times," said the other ; " I thought all 
the while you were speaking of the Devil ! " 

Perhaps the application of the story to the case in point will be seen 
without difficulty. The " argument from design " must creep and coil 
with snakes, raven with wild beasts, and make friends with all the fero- 
cities of nature, all the horror and uncleanness of the world, to a degree 
that does not suit my tastes ; and when, summing and distilling the 
whole, one brings what he calls God out of the logical alembic, I should 
beg leave to suggest to him, as Wendell Phillips did to a colored Demos- 
thenes, who called Washington " a scoundrel," that, purely as a question 
of literary felicity, I might doubt the appropriateness of the epithet ! 

It might be remarked further that, upon the showing of this famous 
argument, the distinction between theist and atheist is jmrely formal. 
The atheist sees order and intelligence in nature, — sees and acknow- 
ledges all of it which there appears. Paley sees the same, neither more 
nor less, but chooses in opinion to separate it from Nature, and conceive 
of it apart. The substantial recognitions are necessarily identical ; but 
what the one leaves where he finds it, the other, as mere matter of for- 
mal opinion, separates from that in which it appears. A fig for the dif- 
ference, I say. 



47 



Religion, — what is it ? It is the absolute affirmation of Spirit, made 
in and by the soul of man. That is my definition of it. Spirit, pure, 
universal, free, embracing all necessity, and holding all in the everlasting 
solution of divine freedom; — this is forever postulated in the soul of 
man. That absolute affirmation is religion, reflected in the spontaneous 
worship of humanity. It is the affirmation of Spirit as with man and for 
him, electing him to the participation of its eternal empire. The spon- 
taneous worship of humanity testifies to religion as natural or native ; 
religion itself is essentially the affirmation of God, of free, sovereign 
Spirit, neither foreign to man, nor limited by him. Put this aside, and 
its significance goes with it. But natural theology first excludes its im- 
port, and then looks for its presence in its absence. 

Let us repose no trust in these self-defeating methods. Setting out 
from the self-enunciation of Spirit in the soul, — setting out from above, 
— we may come sweeping down upon the world, with eyes to see what 
that has not the tongue to tell, furnished with the premise of another 
logic than that of things. Then, having the true word of command, we 
may bid the rock come forth from the quarry, and all the elements of 
nature to serve the architecture of our thought, — may speak, and be 
obeyed. For one, I ape no more the brute vernacular of the world, nor 
ask that to instruct my soul what it shall say ; but rather come to teach 
that the mother-tongue of Spirit. The genius of the living Whole is 
within us, it is ours, and the essence itself of our spiritual being. Where 
religion is, God is, — the voice and the speaker, — the everlasting Word 
proceeding forever from the Father in the sonship of humanity, — the 
Word spoken in innumerable souls, and syllabled in a thousand dialects ; 
here breathed in the mild accents of meditative wisdom ; there hymned 
sweet, flute-like, infinitely melodious, from the lips of enchanted saints ; 
again, blown across the passionate turmoil of time in the trumpet-blasts 
of indignant prophets ; but ever the same Word, ever the voice of Spirit, 
saying, I am. The logic and legitimation of religious belief are found in 
religion itself. Spirit self-affirmed, — this is the premise ; and with this 
we have the whole vast conclusion, which is the spiritual thought, the 
spiritual life and achievement of humanity, before us. 

The President. 

Two more words, friends, and after that, a recess until three o'clock, 
when the afternoon meeting will be held. The first word from Thomas 
W. Higginson. 



48 



Remarks of Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends : — 

I hope the lateness of the hour will give to me at least that grace 
which the public craves, which the public speaker ought rarely to 
claim for himself, the grace of beiug brief. I have shared in the 
enthusiasm of the morning, tempered perhaps by a little of the sad- 
ness of maturity, in remembering how twenty years ago there were 
meetings held like this, almost on this spot ; how twenty years ago 
we heard the same noble aspirations and inspirations from young Uni- 
tarianism, echoed as bravely by young Universalism, and seconded, not 
by Quakerism, but by that spirit which is more than Quakerism, the 
spirit of Lucretia Mott. What remains to us from all that noble 
promise then ? The young Unitarian ministers who then seemed to 
lead the way ; where are they ? Gone, most of. them, out of the. de- 
nomination and out of the ministry, or else shrivelled into conservatives 
and advocating a creed. Those young Universalist ministers, where 
are they ? It is they in part who now control their body, and keep it 
immoveable. And now, looking back upon that time long past, it seems 
as if nothing were left of it to be represented in this organization, ex- 
cept one grand reality, the persistent soul of Lucretia Mott. She can 
say of that movement of long ago, as the sad patriot said of Irish 
liberty, that she sat by its cradle, and she followed its hearse. But I 
rejoice that she witnesses now that which goes beyond the grave, the 
resurrection of that spirit of freedom ; and I only hope she will not pray 
that the Lord's servant may now depart in peace, until she has helped 
a little more to bring the appointed season on earth. 

Mr. Chairman, my faith in the immortality of truth, and in the spirit 
of freedom, is as unbounded as in boyhood. My faith in organiza- 
tions to bring it about, especially in organizations that take the form of 
churches, and the limitations of the Christian name, has faded year by 
year. If it is necessary that any one should stand here, as some one 
suggested, to speak for those who do not claim for themselves the 
Christian name, who have never claimed it for themselves (reverently 
be it spoken), I desire that in default I may be that one. For, if I 
have seen anything clearly for the last twenty years, it is this, that what- 
ever noble significance may be put upon the word Christian, yet where 
any body of men accept it as a bond of union, or even where any man 
singly accepts it as a personal distinction, the body weakens itself, or 
the individual sacrifices his strength, and thenceforward has to spend 
half the remainder of his life in proving that he has a right to the name. 
If we believe that Christ was the greatest of men, let us say so. If 



49 



we believe that Jesus was the noblest of our leaders, let us recognize 
him, as far as we can recognize any leader. But the moment we take 
his name, or any other human name, as a basis of union, from that 
moment, it seems to me, even if the integrity of the soul remains, the 
freedom of expression is gone ; and from that time forward, we cease 
to spend our lives in simply being men, and try to find some equivoca- 
tion, some knot-hole by which we may creep into manhood, and claim to 
be technically Christian at the same time. 

Mr. Chairman, I know how many there are who cannot endorse in 
their souls words like these. How should many of those here present 
endorse them, when they have not spent forty years of life, as I have, in 
proving them to be true ? What we need, what this age needs, is reli- 
gion, an absolute religion, an eternal religion, the religion of Christ, be- 
cause it was religion before Christ, and he could not have been religious 
without assuring it. This is the " free religion " that is needed in 
America, — love to God and love to Man — and any one who can help 
forward such religion by staying in church or in pulpit, let him stay 
there ; and he who can help it by going out, in God's name let him go. 
For six or eight years I have addressed no religious meeting, and ex- 
cept a few military ceremonies in South Carolina, I have taken part in 
the exercises of no pulpit, of no religious organization ; and this has 
come in my case not from any sudden revolution, nor religious struggle 
(for I never had a religious struggle in my life),, but simply from the 
gradual growth of convictions in my own soul. When I hear these brave 
men speak, who have spoken this morning, I wonder, as Lucretia Mott 
wondered, how they can be so large, and yet find a pulpit, in Unita- 
rianism or out of it, any pulpit to hold them. It is not my purpose to 
question their integrity, or their wisdom, but to bow before it, seeing 
that it may be more true and reliable than my own ; but I speak from 
my position as they speak from theirs. 

Free Unitarianism and free Universal ism have been trying to form 
organizations for twenty years, and there is no more organization now 
than there was then. And in the case of the Progressive Friends, there 
is no more of an organization of them now than then ; and it is because 
the spirit that is abroad in this age is foreign to organization, and is in- 
different to the building up of churches. There is a growing indifference 
that does not proceed from sleepiness nor from pre-occupation in un- 
worthy things. The other day at a Unitarian church meeting, the ques- 
tion was raised whether a certain lawyer was a Unitarian. Somebody 
at last said that he was. •*> How do you know," said somebody. " Why," 
said the speaker, who was a simple-hearted Sunday School teacher, "I 
always supposed that he was a Unitarian, because he never went to 
3 



50 



church." It is by that negative standard, and by that only, that any 
religious organization in this age is strong. It is that men are outgrow- 
ing the need of it ; it is because we are getting into a second genera- 
tion of dissent, when a race of men and women are growing up who do 
not care to spend their time in attacking the dogmas which they never 
supported. Why should a man devote himself to attacking Orthodoxy, 
when he was brought up under so mild a form of Unitarianism that he 
hardly knew that there was such a thing as Orthodoxy ? The safety 
that is given by the simple religious training such as a great many of us 
got in Unitarianism, and such as others got in the society of Friends is, 
that there is not a trace of these dogmas left upon them, and that they 
never had the technical religious experience to go through. 

I remember a young girl in a revival meeting, one of the purest 
souls I ever saw, — and when the minister came along after the services, 
as she sat on a back seat waiting for some comrade, the stormy, harsh 
revivalist asked her, " Has the Lord blessed you ? " " Yes," said the 
pure-hearted girl, looking up out of her bright, innocent eyes, " he has 
always blessed me ; " and the revivalist passed on. What could he do 
with such a catechumen as that ? 

I remember once being questioned by some Orthodox ministers in re- 
gard to religious experience. I told them of two little boys out in 
Brookline, who were stopped by robbers. The older of the boys told 
the robbers, with frank simplicity, that he could not give them any money ^ 
because he had none. That seemed to be rather a hopeless case. It 
was not likely that they were going to rob a boy who had no money. 
But when they turned to the other one and asked him the same thing, 
his answer was, " I cannot give you any money, for I have n't got any 
pockets." That was irresistible. No hope there. A boy who had n't 
even a pocket ; what could you do with him ? I told these Orthodox 
divines, — two of the most eminent in the country, — - that, so far as I 
could ascertain, that was my position exactly. And when I expected 
them to look horrified, they burst into laughter ; and one of them was 
so impressed with the story that he has told it several different times at 
Sabbath School, not however with the same application. 

Mr. Chairman, I say th§se things because they are the simple truth, 
as it appears to me. More fortunate than some others this morning, I 
was not invited here to speak for any human organization, past or pres- 
ent, but simply for myself. When they asked John Brown, in Virginia, 
if he came down there under the auspices of any party, he said, "No, I 
came down under the auspices of John Brown." In this age of disinte- 
gration of religious forces, I think that stronger, far stronger is he who 
stands alqne, because he has behind him, not alone the sympathy of 



51 



some one religious body, by accepting which he forfeits more on the other 
side, but he has the vast sympathies of the world with him, Jew, Gentile, 
Barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. But how sad, how pitiable a thing 
it would be to sacrifice the greater, and receive only a feeble strength 
elsewhere. 

And again, this vast sympathy that we gain, may keep us in sym- 
pathy with the partial religions, whose precise forms and nomenclature 
we have long outgrown, — for we see in them also something that is 
still dear to many hearts, or they could not live. There is no ques- 
tion, and none of you should have a question, of the vast value to 
many a soul of the rites of baptism, of confirmation, of church member- 
ship, and the keeping of the Sabbath. To you it may be incredible how 
anv man cares for these things ; but God knows the strength that these 
give to many intellects — half trained they may seem to you, — and 
consciences which you may think half enlightened. I have seen many 
a Southern freedman with his quaint songs and half-pagan dances, which 
half the hearers in this room would think more convivial than moral; 
and yet I have seen, trained upon that poor diet, exhibitions of spiritual 
strength which the noblest of you might be proud to emulate. True 
sympathy teaches true largeness of soul as well. And it teaches more 
than that ; it teaches the only means by which you will ever convert 
the world to a larger faith, — that you should exhibit high moral results 
from the faith you hold. Mr. Cecil, that great theologian of the last 
century, said that if one moral and upright man should deny Christianity, 
he would do the faith of England more harm than all the sneers of 
Voltaire, or all the sentimentalism of Rousseau. 

It was the identity of Theodore Parker's creed with the heroic life 
that he led, that made his name and history immortal from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific shore. It is not the arguments of spiritualism that are 
strong ; even the clear brain and honest heart of our friend Mr. Owen 
cannot put these arguments in so distinct a shape and form of creed as 
shall satisfy any intellectual man beside himself. It is not the argu- 
ments of spiritualism j it is not its inferences ; they are shared in com- 
mon with other bodies. It is not its facts ; they are often doubtful, 
though I think sometimes also true. It is not any of these influences 
that has made Spiritualism run like a ploughshare through sects, and 
bring seeds and blossoms from the ground where there was only a desert. 
The simple fact that there are tens of thousands in immortality, who, 
whereas they were dead in the churches, live now in spiritualism, gives 
to it its strength. It is only last night that I talked with an officer's 
widow who is living alone in this hard world with her two hands to rely 
upon, and not even a pension, and she said to me, " I should have com- 



52 



mitted suicide for the sake of being with my husband, if I had not 
hi lieved from my soul that once every week, at least, I have an authentic 
message from him through a medium." It is such facts as these that 
make spiritualists. The books are weak, the arguments are powerless, 
the preachers, like the speakers in the churches, deal in fine phrases that 
mean nothing. But w T hat men want is to do their duty here, as Theo- 
dore Parker and the Abolitionists have taught them their duty ; and to 
be taught faith in another world by anything that can give it to them. 
Anything that can give this, makes men strong. 

If our meetings do this, they do much, if they only come together 
once a year. If we attempt more than that; if we attempt some new 
organization, some sub-sect ; our movement will mistake its object. 
God grant that such a gathering as these crowded halls have seen this 
morning may not be thus wasted. 

The closing remarks of the morning session were by Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, whose appearance before the audience was 
greeted with much enthusiasm. 

Remarks of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
Mr. Chairman, — 

I hardly felt, in finding this house this morning, that I had come into 
the right hall. I came, aw I supposed myself summoned, to a little com- 
mittee meeting, for some practical end, when I should happily and hum- 
bly learn my lesson ; and I supposed myself no longer subject to your 
call when I saw this house. I have listened with great pleasure to the 
lessons which we have heard. To many, to those last spoken, I have 
found so much in accord with my own thought, that I have little left to 
say. I think that it does great honor to the sensibility of the committee 
that they have felt the universal demand in the community for just the 
movement they have begun. I say* again, in the phrase used by my 
friend, that we began many years ago — yes, and many ages before 
that. But I think the necessity very great, and it has prompted an 
equal magnanimity, that thus invites all classes, all religious men, what- 
ever their connections, whatever their specialities, in whatever relation 
they stand to the Christian church, to unite in a movement of benefit to 
men, under the sanction of religion. We are all very sensible, it is 
forced on us every day, of the feeling that the churches are outgrown ; 
that the creeds are outgrown ; that a technical theology no longer suits 
us. It is not the ill-will of people — no, indeed, but the incapacity for 
confirming themselves there. 

The church is not large enough for the man, it cannot inspire the 



53 



enthusiasm which is the parent of everything good in history, which 
makes the romance of history. For that enthusiasm you must have 
something greater than yourselves, and not less. 

The child, the young student, finds scope in his mathematics and chem- 
istry, or natural history, because he finds a truth larger than he is ; finds 
himself continually instructed. But, in churches, every healthy and 
thoughtful mind finds itself in something less ; it is checked, cribbed, 
confined. And the statistics of the American, the English, and the Ger- 
man cities, showing that the mass of the population is leaving off" going 
to church, indicate the necessity, which should have been foreseen, that 
the church should always be new and extemporized, because it is eternal, 
and springs from the sentiment of men, or it does not exist. One won- 
ders sometimes that the churches still retain so many votaries, when he 
reads the histories of the church. There is an element of childish infat- 
uation in them which does not exalt our respect for man. Read in 
Michelet, that in Europe, for twelve or fourteen centuries, God the Fa- 
ther had no temple and no altar. The Holy Ghost and the son of Mary 
were worshipped, and in the thirteenth century the First Person began 
to appear at the side of his son in pictures, and in sculpture, for worship, 
but only through favor of his son. These mortifying puerilities abound 
in religious history. But as soon as every man is apprised of the Di- 
vine presence within his own mind, — is apprised that the perfect law of 
duty corresponds with the laws of chemistry, of vegetation, of astronomy, 
as face to face in a glass ; that the basis of duty, the order of society, the 
power of character, the wealth of culture, the perfection of taste, all draw 
their essence from this moral sentiment, then we have a religion that 
exalts ; that commands all the social and all the private action. 

What strikes me in the sudden movement which brings together to-day 
so many separated friends, — separated but sympathetic, — and what I 
expected to find here was, some practical suggestions by which we were 
to reanimate and reorganize for ourselves the true church, the pure wor- 
ship. Pure doctrine always bears fruit in pure benefits. It is only by 
good works, it is only on the basis of active duty, that worship finds ex- 
pression. What is best in the ancient religions was the sacred friendships 
between heroes, the sacred bands, and the relations of the Pythagorean 
disciples. Our masonic institutions probably grew from the like origin. 

The close association which bound the first disciples of Jesus is another 
example ; and it were easy to find more. The soul of our late war, 
which will always be remembered as dignifying it, was first, the desire 
to abolish slavery in this country, and secondly, to abolish the mischief 
of the war itself, by healing and saving the sick and wounded soldiers, — 
and this by the sacred bands of the Sanitary Commission. I wish that he 



54 



various beneficent institutions which are springing up, like joyful plants 
of wholesomeness, all over this country, should all be remembered as 
within the sphere of this committee, — almost all of them are represented 
here, — and that within this little band that has gathered to-day, should 
grow friendship. The interests that grow out of a meeting like this, 
should bind us with new strength to the old eternal duties. I will not 
detain you a moment longer. 

Voted to take a recess till 3 P. M. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 

On re-assembling (the Committee on organization not being 
ready to report) the meeting was addressed by Rowland Con- 
nor, who spoke very earnestly in favor of some free and com- 
prehensive plan of associated action. 

Wm. J. Potter, as Chairman of the Committee on Organiza- 
tion, then reported the following articles of Association : 

Articles of Association. 

I. This Association shall be called the Free Religious Association, — 
its objects being to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage 
the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the spirit ; 
and to this end all persons interested in these objects are cordially invited 
to its membership. 

II. Membership in this Association shall leave each individual respon- 
sible for his own opinions alone, and affect in no degree his relation to 
other Associations. Any person desiring to co-operate with the Asso- 
ciation shall be considered a member, with full right to speak in its meet- 
ings ; but an annual contribution of one dollar shall be necessary to give 
a title to vote, — provided, also, that those thus entitled, may at any time 
confer the privilege of voting upon the whole assembly, on questions not 
pertaining to the management of business. 

* III. The Officers of the Association shall be a President, three Vice- 
Presidents, a Secretary and Assistant Secretary, a Treasurer, and six 
Directors, who together shall constitute an Executive Committee, en- 
trusted with all the business and interests of the Association in the in- 
terim of its meetings. These officers shall be chosen by ballot, at the 
Annual Meeting of the Association, and shall hold their offices for one 



55 



year, or until others be chosen in their place ; and they shall have power 
to fill any vacancies that may occur in their number between the annual 
meetings. 

IV. The Annual Meeting of the Association shall be held in the city 
of Boston, on Thursday, of what is known as " Anniversary Week," at 
such place and with such sessions as the Executive Committee may 
appoint ; of which at least one month's previous notice shall be pub- 
licly given. Other meetings and Conventions may be called by the 
Committee, according to their judgment, at such times and places as may 
seem to them desirable. 

V. These Articles may be amended at any Annual Meeting of the 
Association by a majority vote of the members present, provided public 
notice of the amendment has been given with the call for the meeting. 

These articles were adopted, and the following officers elected 
under them : — 

LIST OF OFFICERS. 

President. O. B. Frothingham, New York City, N. Y. 

Vice-Presidents. Robert Dale Owen, New Harmony, Ind. ; *Thomas 
W. Higginson, Newport, R. I. ; Caroline M. Severance, West Newton, 
Mass. 

Secretary. W. J. Potter, New Bedford, Mass. 

Assistant Secretary. Rowland Connor, Boston, Mass. 

Treasurer. Richard P. Hallowell, Boston, Mass. 

Directors. Isaac M. Wise, Cincinnatti, Ohio ; Charles K. Whipple, 
Boston, Mass. ; Edward C. Towne, Medford, Mass. ; Frank B. Sanborn, 
Concord, Mass. ; Hannah E. Stevenson, Boston, Mass. ; and Edna D. 
Cheney, Jamaica Plain, Mass. 

Remarks incidental to the question of organization were made 
by A. B. Alcott, E. C. Towne, F. B. Sanborn, Lucretia Mott, 
Mrs. C. H. Dall, C. C. Burleigh, and F. E. Abbot. The meet- 
ing then adjourned sine die. 

* Elected to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation, on account of numerous engage- 
ments, of Hon. Isaac Ames. 



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